Pomona Artificiale - Artificial Pomona.

I would like to have a room, an empty room.

On a cold day of winter, when the sun melts dirty snowdrifts and deceives impatient citizens tired of winter, I would open my glass showcases and prepare a list, choosing, among the fruits and vegetables on display, those to be planted in my garden.

The glossy apples, pears, plums, grapes, peaches, figs, cherries, apricots, pomegranates, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, turnips and fungi are beautiful artificial fruits moulded by the Italian craftsman and artist Francesco Garner Valletti (1808-1889) around the middle of the nineteenth century. First trained as confectioner, he soon left the art of pastry and the town of Turin, in northern Italy, to create artificial flowers in Milan. His work impressed the Austrian Governor, who introduced Garnier Valletti to the court of Vienna. Here, he began the production of artificial fruit made in wax, continued, a few years later, at the court of the Tsar in St Petersburg, Russia.

At that time, artificial fruits triumphed as decorations for fashionable hats and courtly tables. Elegant ladies adorned garlands of flowers, created with feathers, silk, crepe, batiste, taffetas and satin, with “quelques cerises, une grappe d’épine-vinette, une tige de fraises,” and compositions of “branches de glands de chêne, [et] de groseillier”[1] gave to their hairstyles a sophisticated look. During banquets, elaborated recipes were displayed in extravagant presentations, surrounded by precious glassware on refined linens hidden by gigantic cornucopias full of beautiful artificial fruits to rejoice the table.

In 1848, Garnier Valletti left St. Petersburg, and, back in Turin, he continued his activity with more scientific and didactic purposes. The accuracy of his reproductions, in fact, interested museums and schools, but also nurseries, which used his fruits as a catalogue to show to their customers the different variety of plants. Garnier Valletti worked for the Museo Pomologico in Turin (Pomological Museum), created at the Stablimento Agricolo Burdin in 1857, producing thousands of specimens. At the same time, he worked in his own laboratory to increase his revenues. He received several important awards and encomium, but just in the last months of his life he could enjoy a certain economic peace.

The first step of the process was the study of the fruit used as model. Garnier Valletti took meticulous notes of the day and place where it had been gathered, adding botanical and agronomic characteristics to help a more faithful reproduction. He also prepared drawings, with great attention to colors, proportions and all different small details. Designs were the starting point for the creation of a mould, obtained from the cast of the original fruit, and filled with a secret mixture. In Turin, after his years abroad, Garnier Valletti left wax for a mixture of resins, gums, chalk, and alabaster powder, of which he never revealed the exact composition. This mixture was more resistant and easily adaptable to different type of fruit with excellent results. The fruit, removed from the mould, was polished and colored. After coloration, it was passed with varnish and gloss and finished, with extreme patience and attention, with all details that characterized each quality of fruit. Peaches and apricots, for example, were covered with a wool powder obtained with a mortar. Garnier Valletti called his pomological collection the “Pomona artificiale.”

The list of the cultivar included in Garnier Valletti’s collection is impressive. Their names exalted the qualities and colors of the fruits, such as the tempting cherries called “Tenerina precoce di maggio” (Tender early May) or “Duracina rossobruno grossa” (Duracina large red-brown). Fruits and vegetables were often named to celebrate famous people or in honour of the creator's proud wife, such as the pear “Alexandrina Bivort.” Today, these names are forgotten as many of these ancient cultivars lost with the development of the global and standardized production. The exhibition held at Orto Botanico of Brera, in Milan, at the beginning of January, displayed artificial perfect fruits that, recalling the richness of the past, are an invaluable source of information to support the renewed interest in biological and local production.

At the end of the day, I would close my glass showcases and leave my room for a region of hills and mountains, vines, hazels and chocolate to transform my list of lost fruits in trees for my orchard.

[1] Mme Celnart, Manuel du Fleuriste Artificiel, ou l’Art d’Imiter d’Après Nature toute espèce de fleurs, Paris, A la Librairie Encyclopédique De Roret, 1829. Accessed: Google Books. Transl.: “some cherries, a bunch of barberry, a stem of strawberries” “branches of acorns of oaks, currant." 

Further reading:

Pierluigi Bassignana, Eligio Malusà, Augusto Marchesini, Giorgio Segre e Daniele Regis, Il museo della frutta, La collezione Garnier-Valletti e la frutticoltura storica piemontese, Torino, Umberto Allemandi & C., 1996.

Il Museo della frutta “Francesco Garnier-Valletti, Torino, Palazzo degli Istituti Anatomici, 2007.

Photos:
Travelinagarden.

Fruits and drawings from the exhibition “Garnier-Valletti, Arte e scienza nei frutti artificiali dell’Ottocento.”  Orto Botanico di Brera, Milan, Jan. 2012.

Decorated table, Petherof Palace, St. Petersburg, 2009.

Links:
Museo della Frutta “Francesco Garnier-Valletti.” Torino.
http://www.museodellafrutta.it/en/