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Lot Essay
Landscape pietre dure panels with architectural ruins became popular subjects at the Galleria dei Lavori in the late 17th Century.
These two plaques with their delicate colors and Arcadian ruin landscapes are reminiscent of two landscape roundels made at the Galleria dei Lavori in the first half of the 18th Century, which are in the Museo dell'Opificio, Florence, and a larger closely related upright panel depicting a harbor scene is Schloss Favorite, Rastatt (F. Rossi, La Pittura di Pietra, Florence, 1984, pp. 104 - 105 and 109, respectively). Favorite, owned by the Margaves of Baden, was redecorated by Sibilla Augusta (d. 1733) shortly after the death of her husband Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden in 1707. The construction was finished by 1711, while the interior decoration was only slowly coming to an end towards her death. It was in particular the Florentiner Zimmer which was to contain many pietre dure panels. The Galleria dei Lavori in Florence supplied the panels over a longer period and appears to have made some copies of these panels, some of which are still in the Museo dell'Opificio. A cabinet inset with further similar panels is in the Gilbert Collection and illustrated in A.M. Massinelli, The Gilbert Collection, Hardstones, London, 2000, cat. 6, pp. 44 - 46.
These two plaques are further comparable to later panels made at the Galleria after designs by Giuseppe Zocchi in the mid-18th century. Zocchi is recorded as supplying approximately sixty designs for such plaques to the Galleria between 1750 and his death in 1767. In the archives of the workshop, deliveries of port scenes with architectural elements are mentioned for the years 1751 and 1761 - 1764. Many examples of such pietre dure plaques after Zocchi are today at the Hofburg, Vienna, because the original commissions were by the consort of Maria Theresa, the Emperor Francesco Stefano di Lorena (A. González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Il Granducato di Toscana e gli Stati Settentrionali, Milan, 1986, vol. I, pp. 114 - 125).
These two plaques with their delicate colors and Arcadian ruin landscapes are reminiscent of two landscape roundels made at the Galleria dei Lavori in the first half of the 18th Century, which are in the Museo dell'Opificio, Florence, and a larger closely related upright panel depicting a harbor scene is Schloss Favorite, Rastatt (F. Rossi, La Pittura di Pietra, Florence, 1984, pp. 104 - 105 and 109, respectively). Favorite, owned by the Margaves of Baden, was redecorated by Sibilla Augusta (d. 1733) shortly after the death of her husband Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden in 1707. The construction was finished by 1711, while the interior decoration was only slowly coming to an end towards her death. It was in particular the Florentiner Zimmer which was to contain many pietre dure panels. The Galleria dei Lavori in Florence supplied the panels over a longer period and appears to have made some copies of these panels, some of which are still in the Museo dell'Opificio. A cabinet inset with further similar panels is in the Gilbert Collection and illustrated in A.M. Massinelli, The Gilbert Collection, Hardstones, London, 2000, cat. 6, pp. 44 - 46.
These two plaques are further comparable to later panels made at the Galleria after designs by Giuseppe Zocchi in the mid-18th century. Zocchi is recorded as supplying approximately sixty designs for such plaques to the Galleria between 1750 and his death in 1767. In the archives of the workshop, deliveries of port scenes with architectural elements are mentioned for the years 1751 and 1761 - 1764. Many examples of such pietre dure plaques after Zocchi are today at the Hofburg, Vienna, because the original commissions were by the consort of Maria Theresa, the Emperor Francesco Stefano di Lorena (A. González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Il Granducato di Toscana e gli Stati Settentrionali, Milan, 1986, vol. I, pp. 114 - 125).