Salviati and Co. A fine Italian mosaic portrait of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Palazzo Barbarigo, Venice, dated 1865

Together with Henry Cole, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Consort of Queen Victoria of England (1819-1861), was the mastermind behind the Great Exhibition of 1851, with a view to celebrating the great advances of the British Industrial Age and the expansion of the empire. Using the profits from this event he commissioned the building of the Royal Albert Hall and established the museum sites in Kensington.

Our portrait is probably based on a daguerrotype photograph by John Jabez Edwin Mayal (née Jabez Meal) (1813-1901), photographer and producer of daguerrotypes (see albumen carte-de-visite, 1st December 1861, National Portrait Gallery, London).

For an almost identical miniature example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, (illustrated here) see R.Liefkes, Burlington Magazine, Vol.CXXXVI, May 1994, pp.284-285, fig.19. Measuring 19.5cm. by 16.5cm. and signed on the reverse 'STABILIMENTO SALVIAT VENEZIA 1864'.  This smaller version (inv. 261-1866) was made by Salviati at the time of the installation of mosaic panels to the Albert Memorial in London. It was presented to Queen Victoria in 1864 who in turn gave it to the Museum two years later.

Antonio Salviati's glass-working career began in 1859 when he founded a workshop in Venice in order to make very large as well as plaque-sized micro-mosaics. The mosaic pieces were melted down in Murano by the well-known glass technician, Lorenzo Radi, in a wide and elegant range of colours. In 1866, when Salviati founded his own glass-works (called  the Venice and Murano Glass and Mosaic Company from 1872) in Murano, he established his independence from Lorenzo Radi and produced glass mosaic pieces on his own, thanks to the collaboration of the gifted glass technician, Vincenzo Moretti.

The mosaic workshop was founded by inviting the mosaic artist, Enrico Podio, from Rome. He came from a family specialising in mosaic and micro-mosaic work. The most famous member of the family was Luigi Podio who had made miniature micro-mosaics for the renowned Roman goldsmith, Pio Castellani as well as for his children and heirs, Alessandro and Augusto. The latter were all creators of beautiful pieces of jewellery in archaeological style as well as being collectors and antique dealers in their own right. The Castellani family enjoyed a close professional relationship as well as friendship with Salviati and Alessandro Castellani was Salviati's consultant  regarding the ancient glass-making techniques.

It is likely that the Castellani trio introduced Salviati to Enrico Podio who is already quoted in the catalogue of the first Murano glass exhibition (inaugurated in 1864 in the glass museum, founded in 1861) alongside Lorenzo Radi as being one of the main figures behind the renaissance of mosaic-work in Venice.

Salviati made important large-scale mosaics for both European and American clients even after 1877 when he was abandoned by the other members of the Venice and Murano Glass and Mosaic Company. He continued to produce important mosaic decoration on public and privately-owned buildings as well as exhibiting at the major World Fairs of the period. His smaller plaque-sized mosaics were an important part of this production and include views of monuments and portraits of such historical figures of the 'Risorgimento' as Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Vittorio Emanuele II, Cavour as well as of Antonio Salviati and others.