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A late 18th/early 19th century Italian relief carved and part stained wood oval profile portrait plaque depicting a classical warrior maiden, perhaps Minerva Possibly attributable to the workshop of Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (Italian, 1745–1820) image 1
A late 18th/early 19th century Italian relief carved and part stained wood oval profile portrait plaque depicting a classical warrior maiden, perhaps Minerva Possibly attributable to the workshop of Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (Italian, 1745–1820) image 2
Lot 19

A late 18th/early 19th century Italian relief carved and part stained wood oval profile portrait plaque depicting a classical warrior maiden, perhaps Minerva
Possibly attributable to the workshop of Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (Italian, 1745–1820)

Fine Decorative Arts
3 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

£2,000 - £3,000

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A late 18th/early 19th century Italian relief carved and part stained wood oval profile portrait plaque depicting a classical warrior maiden, perhaps Minerva

Possibly attributable to the workshop of Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (Italian, 1745–1820)
The armoured female figure clad in a Corinthian battle helmet surmounted by a winged dragon with forked tongue, within ribbon tied fruiting vine border, mounted within a rectangular gilt frame with moulded and beaded integral inner slip, with brass suspension ring, the plaque 17cm high, 13cm wide approximately, the gilt frame, 21cm x 18.5cm wide overall approximately

Footnotes

Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo was born in Asti into a family of carvers and trained in his father's workshop before moving to Turin around 1773. By the middle of the decade he was working for the Savoy court, designing furniture, decorative panels, and frames in an elegant Neoclassical style which saw him subsequently become the royal woodcarver to Vittorio Amedeo III.

However alongside these grand commissions, he developed a highly distinctive artform of small scale relief and portrait carving, producing medallions and profiles of idealised and historical and contemporary sitters in wood and ivory which combined the precision of the goldsmith with the refinement of the sculptor.
Bonzanigo's own self-portrait of the 1780s carved in contrasting woods, presents his profile within an array of medallions depicting fellow sculptors suspended on delicate garlands and ribbons, including Michelangelo and Canova. His later medallion portraits of members of the Savoy family, and subsequently of Napoleon and his entourage, also adopted these stylistic devices. In his final years, he continued to refine this approach and his portrait of Maria Theresa of Austria-Este contrasts sculpted ivory and coloured woods heightened by the use of an elaborate frame carved with trophies, foliage and allegorical figures.

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