Pax Huic Domui (Peace to this house) and more art by Amy N. Worthen

(Commissioned Print & Gift Print, 1998)

Worthen’s engraving and mezzotint depicts the courtyard of a Venetian friend’s palazzo on the Grand Canal, near the church of San Tomà. Over the doorway are carved the words PAX HUIC DOMUI, Latin for “peace to this house.”
When Print Club started the Commissioned Print program in 1991, the Club also ordered 50 handmade albums from Venetian bookbinder Renato Polliero, in which members could keep their prints. The only limitation on the artists commissioned to create the Print Club prints was that the print had to fit on the album’s 12 x 9 in. page. Ignoring these rules, Worthen transgressively designed Pax Huic Domui to fit in the open book. In the editioned print, the fold is intentional. The perspective works correctly only when the page is creased.