BY FRATELLI LUCCHESI, LUCCA, SECOND QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

This pair of early 19th century Italian neo-classical armchairs is probably from the same set as an identical chair at the Pitti Palace, Florence, illustrated in ed. H. Hayward, World Furniture, London, 1965, p. 268. Bearing a label for Fratelli Lucchese, they were made by this celebrated firm of chair-makers from Lucca in Tuscany. As the firm’s name suggests, it comprised three brothers, Antonio, Pietro Ricci and Lorenzo Lucchesi. Little is known today of their activities but between 1817 and 1820 they were engaged to supply giltwood seat-furniture as part of the magnificent refurbishment of the Palazzo Ducale in Lucca at the instigation of Maria Luisa di Borbone, former Queen of Etruria. On the death of the duchess in 1824, the Palazzo di Lucca was considered one of the richest interiors in Italy (E. Colle, ‘Furnishings and Interior Decoration in Lucca’, The Villas of Lucca, Mulgrave, 2014, p. 48). The inclusion of carved outspread wings on the arms is possibly derived from designs in Percier & Fontaine’s Recueil et Décorations Intérieures (pl. 6 & 39).