Bonhams 1793 : An impressive Italian second half 19th century gilt-bronze, pietre dure, rock crystal, specimen marble, ivory and bone mounted palissandre, ebony, ebonised and parquetry architectural cabinet incorporating earlier elements

An impressive Italian second half of the 19th century gilt bronze, pietre dure, rock crystal, specimen marble, ivory and bone mounted palissandre, ebony, ebonised and parquetry architectural cabinet incorporating earlier elements

5 Jul 2012 14:00 BST London, New Bond Street
Fine European Furniture, Sculpture and Works of Art
Back to auction 20017

An impressive Italian second half 19th century gilt-bronze, pietre dure, rock crystal, specimen marble, ivory and bone mounted palissandre, ebony, ebonised and parquetry architectural cabinet

incorporating earlier elements
the pietre-dure and specimen marble including notably lapis-lazuli, jasper, porphyry, quartz and yellow Sienna marble, the canted upper structure surmounted by a balustrade, above an architectural front centred by a pair of doors, each incorporating a niche with a female figure, opening to a theatrical interior with two drawers above a cube parquetry floor surmounted by three painted panels featuring bacchic subjects and a pair of mirrors below a painted ceiling with a landscape, flanked to each side by a niche, one with a figure of Hercules, the other Vulcan, each canted side fronted by a door opening to five drawers and centred by a niche with a female allegorical figure, flanked by rock crystal columns and further ivory inlaid columns, each surmounted by an arched cornice and vases, joined by a balustrade, the overall composition flanked to each side by a large inlaid column, the sides with two marble panels, the base with ten similar columns on a canted plinth with geometrical parquetry, on bun feet, 174cm wide, 56cm deep, 191cm high (68.5" wide, 22" deep, 75" high).

Estimate:

£60,000 - 90,000
€71,000 - 110,000
US$ 94,000 - 140,000

Footnotes

This cabinet is a very fine example to illustrate the revival of the taste for Baroque pietre-dure mounted architectural cabinets in the mid-19th century. At the 1861 National Exhibition in Florence, the cabinet maker Francesco Betti was acclaimed for re-creating Baroque cabinets with pietre dure ormolu-mounted columns and gilt bronze statuettes. At the 1867 Paris Great Exhibition Andrea Picchi of Florence exhibited a cabinet described as such: "Very beautiful (...) it is of Ebony, the enrichments being of ormolu, with a judicious admixture of mosaic ornaments, in natural stone." Although the architecture of the present lot is more innovative, the use of niches centred by ormolu figural statuettes and the use of geometrical plaques in specimen marble, allows a comparison with the Picchi cabinet.
Literature:
- Enrico Colle, Il Mobile dell'Ottocento in Italia, Electa, 2007.
- The illustrated catalogue of the 1867 Universal exhibition, published with the Art journal, 1867-1868.

Category: Furniture / European Furniture and Works of Art

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