Face to face … two male Alpine ibexes or mountain goats raise their hoofs to paw the air above a sgraffito inscription dated 1596 on the facade of a typical traditional family house in Ardez, an historic village in the Lower Engadine Valley in Graubünden or Grisons canton, eastern Switzerland. The Alpine or Capra ibex is the canton’s heraldic symbol. The inscription mentions a member of the powerful von Planta family, first recorded owners of a mid-13th century knightly tower in Ardez.
Ardez, Graubünden or Grisons canton, eastern Switzerland: pawing the air … two Alpine or Capra ibex buck mountain goats raise their hoofs as they face each other above a late-16th century sgraffito inscription on the facade of a typical traditional family house in this historic village in the Lower Engadine Valley. The Alpine ibex, the canton’s heraldic symbol, decorates both ancient and modern homesteads in Ardez and its neighbouring settlements. The inscription below the goats, dated 1596, refers to ‘Conradinus von Planta’ a member of a powerful local family who were the first recorded owners of the Tuor Ardez or Vonzun Turm, a mid-13th century medieval stone tower that served at various times as a family stronghold, a district prison and a detention centre. Ardez, part of the municipality of Scuol, is renowned for its carefully restored 16th and 17th century houses decorated with coats of arms, decorative sgraffito and inscriptions in the Rhaeto-Romance or Romansh language still spoken today by many local people. Sgraffito is the ancient artistic technique of scratching or cutting away parts of a surface layer of plaster, stucco or paint to expose a different colour or texture. Its heyday in Graubünden was in the 1600s and 1700s, but the craft was revived in the early 1900s amid fresh appreciation of traditional regional artistic styles. Today, Graubünden artists and craftsmen use sgraffito both in restoration work and in new builds.
Size: 3613px × 2404px
Location: Ardez, Graubünden or Grisons canton, eastern Switzerland
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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