1916-1940 SERPIERI FAMILY PHOTO ALBUM ATHENS GREECE, LAURION MINES, ATHENIAN AND ROMAN RUINS
Item #1437
Five albums contain over 2,000 photographs belonging to the lineage of the Serpieri family. This collection depicts their travels around Europe, hinging around their home base near Athens, Greece. The Serpieri family was a prominent, powerful family of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Their wealth and power was to do with their ownership of the pre-historical Laurion mines, south of Athens. These images of their travels, family photos, and historic images were made between 1916-1939.
The majority of the photographs in these albums are provided with caption. Most pages provide month, year, and location. Certain photographs are exhibited with more details, including names of people pictured and additional context. All captions are in French.
The material of the albums vary greatly. The earliest album, beginning in 1916, measures 13" x 9 3/4" and contains 132 photographs. This paper album is bound by rope. Inside are twelve leaves and twenty-four pages. The following album, made between 1917-1921, houses 502 photographs across 62 leaves/65 pages. This album measures 10 1/2” x 12 1/4”, the covers made of woven cloth. The third album with a time overlap of several years, and largest of them all measuring: 11 3/4" x 16 1/4", was made over the years: 1918-1920. This large album contains 32 leaves/63 pages. This album contains 456 images. The majority of leaves in this album are detached from the binding… An album made of leather covers, and leather bound brown pages with raw edges measures 13 1/2" x 10 7/8" with a total of 473 images across 35 leaves/70 pages. This album was made between 1923-1925. The final album, also leather-bound, made between the years 1928-1939 is 14" x 10 1/2" consisting of 33 leaves/66 pages and contains 464 images.
The earliest photographs from 1916 are accompanied by the caption: "Apres l'incendie", meaning “After the Fire". Multiple cars, homes, and trees are charred, black, and freshly bleak. The next few photographs display a massive crowd gathered in the public space of the seventh arrondissement in Paris, the Champ de Mars. Followed by images of soldiers marching through the streets, rifles in hand and white and black armbands. The white armbands signified nuetrality and black armbands indicated a man in mourning. This was during World War I, of course. Two pages in this album also display the scene surrounding the Laurion mines, the heart of this family’s wealth.
The Serpieri’s amassed their wealth in ownership and management of the Mines of Lavrion in southern Attica, roughly 50 km south of the center of Athens in Greece. Their management of these silver and lead mines led to their esteemed prominence in the region. The Lavrion mines are “older than recorded history”. When the operations of these mines began cannot be properly fixed.
Their wealth profited a life of easy and frequent travel. The family is pictured here around the ruins of Athens to the coast, to Penteli, to the Aegean Island of Pyrgos, to the bustling city of Paris, to the French countryside, to Rome, Italy, to Alexandria, Egypt, etc. Images take the viewer to the coast of Athens, to the ruins of Acropolis, to Eleusis, Penteli, to the Temple of Athens Polias, the ruins of Erechtheion, and to the Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati, Italy, the mountains of Sparte, the pyramids of Egypt, etc. Photographs illustrate their poetics of space to be that of ornate, palatial interiors and exteriors, as well as visits to ancient, stone convents and villages, etc.
These images display their elite cultural touchstones of horse racing and tennis and international markets. Family photographs in sun and snow mostly in Pyrgos, Athens, and Rome, and a trip to St. Moritz in Switzerland in 1920. This trip to St. Moritz was boisterous, and had children and adults both sledding down the mountains of Switzerland. Along their way home, the visited quiet streets of Rome in, the St. Maria Maggiore, the Palazzo della Consulta.
A crowd in Athens, December 6, 1920, shows support for the reinstatement of Constantine I as he was elected to return his position as the King of Greece. The page following the images of the fortitudiness crowd tells of the photographer aboard the Averof, the same day of the election, standing beside Constantine I himself. The King is photographed.
The final album made between the years 1928-1940, again display their wealth of travels. This album features the theatre of war, the attempt to revive Grecian tradition of cultural and athletic festivals at the Fêtes Delphiques, the organization of which only occurred between 1927-1930. These images are from its final year.
Price: $2,000.00
Status: On Hold