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Lot Essay
This finely inlaid games table, with a medallion of a ribbon-tied crossed quiver and flaming torch framed on a ground of golden walnut, can be firmly attributed to the celebrated Milanese ebanista Giuseppe Maggiolini (1738-1814), Intarsiatore delle Loro Altezze Reali. The central medallion, an allegory of Love, is directly based on a drawing by the influential architect and designer Giuseppe Levati (1738-1828), now in the Civica Raccolta delle Stampe in Milan (illustrated in G. Morazzoni, Il Mobile del Maggiolini, Milan, 1957, fig. LXXV). Levati was one of the first Milanese designers to employ a neoclassical vocabulary in architecture and the decorative arts, and as early as 1763 published a series of drawings based on the excavations at Herculaneum (see A.Gonzalez-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto: La Toscana e L'Italia Settentrionale, Milan, 1986, vol. II, p. 294, fig. 605). Levati provided the designs for a number of marquetry panels on documented Maggiolini pieces, in both chinoiserie and neoclassical styles (see Gonzalez-Palacios op. cit., pp. 292-295, and Morazzoni op. cit., figs.LXXIV-LXXXI).
The table offered here, with the carefully ordered design of its top employing richly figured contrasting veneers framing the central panel and with distinctive rosettes forming the corners, relates to a group of games tables of similarly ordered geometric design executed by Maggiolini's workshop for the Napoleonic court at the Palazzo Reale in Milan (see G. Beretti, Giuseppe Maggiolini, Milan, 1994, pp. 194-5). This commission can be dated to the years following 1807 by a series of designs dated 1807 from Maggiolini's workshop for foliate marquetry panels (similar to the oval medallions framing the central panel on this table) for '... tavolini [Per] la R.[ea]le Corte in Milano Ap.[ri]le 1807' (Beretti ibid., p. 196).
Maggiolini worked extensively for the Milanese court and for the aristocracy of Northern Italy including Marchese Litta, who, along with Levati, first recognized his talents as an intarsiatore in 1768. His many projects included the furnishing of the Palazzo Ducale in Milan, the Villa Reale in Monza and the Palazzo Ducale in Mantova.
The table offered here, with the carefully ordered design of its top employing richly figured contrasting veneers framing the central panel and with distinctive rosettes forming the corners, relates to a group of games tables of similarly ordered geometric design executed by Maggiolini's workshop for the Napoleonic court at the Palazzo Reale in Milan (see G. Beretti, Giuseppe Maggiolini, Milan, 1994, pp. 194-5). This commission can be dated to the years following 1807 by a series of designs dated 1807 from Maggiolini's workshop for foliate marquetry panels (similar to the oval medallions framing the central panel on this table) for '... tavolini [Per] la R.[ea]le Corte in Milano Ap.[ri]le 1807' (Beretti ibid., p. 196).
Maggiolini worked extensively for the Milanese court and for the aristocracy of Northern Italy including Marchese Litta, who, along with Levati, first recognized his talents as an intarsiatore in 1768. His many projects included the furnishing of the Palazzo Ducale in Milan, the Villa Reale in Monza and the Palazzo Ducale in Mantova.