A PAIR OF ITALIAN NEOCLASSIC GILTWOOD STOOLS

Details
A PAIR OF ITALIAN NEOCLASSIC GILTWOOD STOOLS

Each with rectangular padded seat upholstered in grey silk above a fluted frieze on griffin and acanthus-carved X-frame legs ending in animal paw feet, bearing a paper label inscribed in ink A58 (one stool possibly reduced in size)--17½in. (44.5cm.) high, 23½in. (60cm.) wide, 16¾in. (42.5cm.) deep (2)
Provenance
Countess Bianca Tam, Rome

Lot Essay

The daughter of Count and Countess Peritti, Countess Bianca Tam married Tam Gian Ciau, a major in the Chinese army, in 1938. At the dissolution of her marriage, isolated within China in the midst of the Second World War, Bianca Tam became a spy for the Japanese. At the end of the war she was pardoned by Pope Pius XII and returned to Italy in 1947.

A similar giltwood stool from Lucca, c. 1825 but without the stretcher is in the Galleria Uffizi and illustrated in A. Massinella, Il Mobile Toscano, 1993, p.98, no. 175.