AUSONIA was a miniature combination of the ANDREA DORIA/CRISTOFORO COLOMBO and LEONARDO DA VINCI, both internally and externally. Her designer was the masterful Nino Zoncada, who employed the same magical cabal of artists (Luzzati, Majoli, Moscherini, Zufi and Paulucci) who fashioned work for the majority of the important post war liners and cruise ships. In the mid-1980s, AUSONIA was rebuilt and some of the artwork was removed or re situated and in 1998, when the ship was sold to Louis Cruise Lines, a few more pieces were removed. Fortunately, the three deck's worth of hand painted melamine panels of Italian architectural monuments in the forward stairtower remained. What is even more remarkable is that they were not damaged during the ship's 53 years at sea or during the removal process in India.

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Emanuele Luzzati was not only a painter, sculptor and animator but also one of Italy's finest scenic designers. This theatrical set of panels was an inspired backdrop for AUSONIA's first class passengers and is utterly breathtaking for its scope, scale and subject matter, which includes varied Italian cathedrals, palazzi, opera houses and cuppolae. The primary colors are blue, gray and black but there are small dashes of reds, green and yellow hidden in the body of work. The condition overall is excellent, although some edge wear (most of the outer edges of the panel were concealed behind ceilings, carpet and adjoining bulkheads) and there are several cut outs for electrical panels and switches (noted under each section). Some small nicks, scrapes and scratches are there, not very visible or distracting, but nonetheless should be mentioned. This work is 53 years old and has stood the test of time magnificently.

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Luzzati passed away a couple years ago but not before he saw that much of his work from the great liners and cruise ships of the 1950s and 1960s was being saved for a new generation of admirers. There is a museum in Genoa dedicated to him in the New Siberia section of Porto Antico but none of the work therin approaches the magnitude of his shipboard art, this panel included. A masterpiece!

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