Buxom twin-tailed mermaid, flanked by urns, between female supporters blowing horns or pipes while reclining on the slopes of a classical broken pediment: charming if outlandish rustic sgraffito art above entrance arch to Haus Aual 131 at Ardez, Graubünden or Grisons canton, eastern Switzerland. The restored facade, dated 1665, also features an inscription in the Romansh language and bizarre hybrid animals and sea monsters above two windows.
Ardez, Graubünden or Grisons canton, eastern Switzerland: a buxom mermaid, flanked by urns, grasps her twin tails as female supporters blow horns or pipes while reclining on the slopes of a classical broken pediment, in charming if bizarre rustic sgraffito art above the round-arched doorway of Haus Aual 131, one of the traditional family homes in this historic village. The restored facade, dated 1665, also features another horn- or pipe-blowing female supporter beside an inscription in Rhaeto-Romance or Romansh, a language still spoken by many local people. Nearby, hybrid animals and sea monsters stand or float above two windows. Ardez, in the Lower Engadine Valley, is renowned for carefully restored 16th and 17th century houses decorated with heraldic symbols, Romansh inscriptions and wall art, either painted or scratched in sgraffito. 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 regional artistic styles. In the Lower Engadine, Iachen Ulrich Könz restored many sgraffito facades in his home village, Guarda. His sons switched away from traditional designs, enriching more than 100 historic facades, including some in Ardez, with dragons, fish or mermaids. They also added decorative sgraffito to modern buildings and today, Graubünden artists and craftsmen use sgraffito both in restoration work and in new build projects.
Size: 4256px × 2832px
Location: Ardez, Graubünden or Grisons canton, eastern Switzerland
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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