| 1909 Peter had kept in touch with his brother, Tony, by mail throughout much of his long absence. Tony had completed his primary schooling in Toppo, then moved to Paris where he too had trained in the mosaic, plaster and marble crafts. When Peter left New York in 1907, Tony organised to replace him in their uncles’ business. Throughout 1908 and 1909, Tony Melocco worked hard and lived frugally in America, sending any money he could save to Australia to subsidise his elder brother’s fledgling business. Peter meanwhile was beginning to receive significant commissions, including the black and white mosaic foyer to Dymocks House in George Street. |
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“From things Tony said to me and from my reading, I’m now fairly certain that Tony trained with a man called Gian Domenico Facchina, who is famed for inventing mosaic-on-paper, the modern mosaic technique that we know today. He was born in 1826 in Sequals in Friuli, which is just five or six kilometres from Toppo. He moved to France in 1847 but he generally sourced his workers from Friuli. By the time Tony arrived in Paris, his studio would have employed 100 or so people. He was extremely well respected and he and his men worked all over Europe, from St Petersburg to Trieste and of course Paris.” — Frank Colussi, mosaic artist who worked at Melocco Brothers and originally trained at the School of Mosaic Spilembergo Italy near Toppo |
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Tony
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Romolo
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