The Moncler down jacket worn by
Ugo Angelino during Italy's historic conquest of K2 in 1954, the
only one known to exist from the glorious enterprise, will be up
for sale on 28 February at Aste Boalffi's website
astebolaffi.it, together with other memorabilia, posters,
furniture, and collector's items for winter sport enthusiasts.
For the first Italian auction dedicated entirely to the
mountains, Aste Bolaffi proposes a catalogue of 81
carefully-selected lots that are able to recount the attraction
of the mountains in all of their variations.
The memorabilia from the K2 expedition are items of
undisputed historical and symbolic value.
K2 was conquered on 31 July, 1954 by Achille Compagnoni and
Lino Lacedelli, with a crucial contribution made by both the
young Walter Bonatti and the Pakistani Amir Mahdi as well.
But the expedition led by Ardito Desio, which was both a
great athletic triumph and a symbol of Italian rebirth in the
post-war period, went down in history as a success of the entire
group that took part in it.
The Moncler down jacket was worn during this expedition by
Ugo Angelino, one of the "13 heroes" to whom the newly-founded
French maison supplied the technical gear for the expedition.
The blue down jacket worn by the Biellese mountaineer at
least until the seventh camp was the first one patented with the
consultation of the great mountaineer Lionel Terray.
Rediscovering the thermic properties of the down jacket,
Terray developed a specialized line for high-altitude missions,
officially tested by the Italians on the Karakorum mountain
range.
With the inner label "Modèle réalisé sous la direction
technique de Lionel Terray" and the handwritten inscription of
Ugo Angelino, the Moncler is valued between 40 and 50 thousand
euros.
Some other items from Ugo Angelino's private collection that
will be very interesting to enthusiasts include two original 16
mm copies of the renowned film Italia K2 (1955) by Marcello
Baldi featuring high-altitude shots by Mario Fantin, some
autographed photographs of the participants in the expedition, a
commemorative ice axe produced by Grivel dedicated to Angelino,
and the boots worn by the mountaineer in 1954 (starting prices
from 500 to 2,000 euros).
There are also some very famous Alpine shots, from the Alps
to the Himalayas, taken by Vittorio Sella included in the
auction.
Sella was a pioneer of high-altitude photography and produced
some of the most incredible mountain photo features of all time.
The catalogue also includes a collection of photographic and
biographical material that documents the Alpine activities of
Julius Kugy and Wladimir Dougan (starting price 3 thousand
euros), a very fine selection of posters, such as the iconic
Sestriere by Mario Puppo (starting price 4,500 euros), and two
posters by Carl Franz Moos, among the most sought-after mountain
posters by collectors: St. Moritz and Sportbekleidung Fritz
Schulze (starting price 3 thousand euros each).
Paintings, furniture from the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and small sculptures are also included in the
catalogue.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
