1922 GIORNALE ILLUSTRATO DEI VIAGGI #6, Achille Beltrame, illustr.
$ 23.76
Description
1922 GIORNALE ILLUSTRATO DEI VIAGGI #6, Achille Beltrame, illustr.. GIORNALE ILLUSTRATO DEI VIAGGI. Giornale Illustrato dei Viaggi e delle Avventure di Terra e di Mare. Anno XXXVIII, No. 6 — Milano, 5 Febbraio 1922. Date: 5 February 1922. Molino was still early in his career in 1922 and had only begun to appear in illustrated weeklies. GIORNALE ILLUSTRATO DEI VIAGGI Anno XXXVIII, No. 6 — Milano, 5 Febbraio 1922 Casa Editrice Sonzogno, Milano Prezzo: Cent. 35 ART TITLE: Sul Rio delle Amazzoni SUBTITLE: I “botos” tornarono all’assalto con maggior vigore… 1. Artwork Description The dramatic full-color cover illustration plunges the viewer directly into a tense Amazonian river encounter. A long, narrow canoe—rendered in delicately shaded browns—is crowded with four figures: three indigenous rowers and a European traveler wearing a pale green jacket. The expressions are vivid and highly animated; the lead oarsman leans forward with muscular urgency, his striped loincloth and dark skin modeled with strong linear hatching that gives depth to the limbs. The traveler grips a firearm, clearly alarmed as the smooth, rounded backs of botos—Amazon river dolphins—break the water around them. The colorist employed a lush palette: deep greens of the jungle canopy, warm pinks and yellows bleeding across the sky at dusk, and rich watery blues with touches of emerald. The composition uses diagonal movement to create agitation—oars cutting water, dolphins lunging, the canoe tipping slightly as if seconds from capsizing. The background palms are printed in softly stippled half-tones to contrast with the sharp, almost woodcut-like outlines of the figures. The overall effect is one of immediacy and tropical intensity, typical of early 20th-century Italian adventure periodicals. 2. Publication Details Publication: Giornale Illustrato dei Viaggi e delle Avventure di Terra e di Mare Publisher: Casa Editrice Sonzogno, Milano (Via Pasquirolo, 14) Date: 5 February 1922 Series: Anno XXXVIII Issue: No. 6 Price: 35 centesimi Frequency: Weekly (Si pubblica la domenica) This long-running illustrated travel weekly specialized in exotic adventure reporting, serialized fiction, and ethnographic popularizations aimed at middle-class Italian readers. Sonzogno was one of Italy’s largest and most influential mass-market publishers, especially active in children’s and family-oriented illustrated magazines. 3. Possible Illustrator Attribution Although the cover is unsigned, the stylistic indicators narrow the likely candidates to a small circle of Sonzogno’s regular illustrators active in the early 1920s: • Achille Beltrame Though best known for La Domenica del Corriere, Beltrame occasionally provided work for other houses. His hallmarks—dynamic diagonals, muscular anatomy, and heavy contour outlining—are present, though the facial modeling here is somewhat softer than his norm. • Walter Molino (less likely) Molino was still early in his career in 1922 and had only begun to appear in illustrated weeklies. His figures tend to be more elongated and theatrical than those on this cover. • Arnaldo Ferraguti Ferraguti’s work shows similar atmospheric backgrounds and tropical settings, though his brushwork is typically more impressionistic than the crisp line handling here. • Anonymous Sonzogno House Artist Sonzogno, like many major publishers, maintained in-house illustrators who rarely signed their work. The consistent ornamental color layering and standardized figure types strongly suggest a stable workshop hand rather than a star freelancer. Most probable attribution: A Sonzogno staff illustrator working in the Beltrame-influenced popular naturalist style common between 1915–1925. 4. Printing & Production Notes Coloring Method: Multi-stone chromolithography with overprinted halftone screens, typical of Sonzogno’s mid-tier color work of the period. Paper: Thin wood-pulp newsprint, prone to browning and edge chipping (as visible on the surviving copy). Layout: Thick black frame margining the artwork—a Sonzogno signature device—intended to stabilize color registration and minimize bleed. Inks: Slight offset ghosting visible in the greens suggests the cyan stone was run slightly wet during the press cycle. Typography: The masthead uses Sonzogno’s angular Art Nouveau hybrid, unchanged since circa 1907. 5. Significance This issue exemplifies early 20th-century Italian fascination with geographic exploration and “exotic” locales. The presence of botos—Amazon river dolphins—shows the magazine’s mix of sensationalism and genuine ethnographic interest. Such covers helped shape European imagination of the tropics, blending reportage with fiction in a way unique to Sonzogno’s travel line. Today, these issues are valued among collectors for their striking lithographed colors, their role in Italian popular culture, and their representation of period attitudes toward exploration, wildlife, and non-European cultures.
