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Lot Essay
This unusual console table with its stylized Egyptian uprights and frieze of delicately scrolling rinceau foliage, elegantly combines the two powerful stylistic influences of the 1780's in Italy, the classical and the Egyptian. While the Egyptian revival in France and England was largely spurred by the Napoleonic campaigns in Egypt, it was an everpresent influence in Rome as ancient Egyptian relics, brought back during classical antiquity, remained an immediate source of inspiration.
Thus the Emperor Hadrian created an Egyptian pavilion to house his collection of Egyptian sculpture, while Raphael's frescoes for the Stanza dell'Incendio di Borgo in the Vatican incorporated stylized Egyptian figures after a sculpture of Hadrian's favourite companion, Antinous (for more on the influence of this particular image, see footnote to lot 306).
The celebrated collector Cardinal Alessandro Albani, whose sales of sculpture to the king of Poland in 1728 and to Pope Clement XII in 1734 today form an important part of the collections in Dresden and the Capitoline Museum, was one of the first connoisseurs in the 18th century to recognize the importance of Egyptian art. The Egyptian hall he created in Villa Albani in 1763 to house many of his Egyptian sculptures, proved to be enormously influential in promoting the taste for the Egyptian style and was published in drawings by Hubert Robert and the architect Charles Percier. This was followed by an Egyptian decorative scheme for the Caffe degli Inglesi by Piranesi (a designer more usually known for his promotion of the neoclassical taste), published in his Diversi Manieri di Ornare i Cammini in 1769, which also included several extravagantly conceived Egyptian style fireplaces. Soon after Prince Marcantonio Borghese commissioned the architect Antonio Asprucci to create an Egyptian Hall in the Villa Borghese, completed in 1782 and housing several important Egyptian sculptures in his collection, and the taste for architectural and decorative schemes in the style of ancient Egypt was well established among sophisticated connoisseurs in Italy (see J-M. Humbert et al., Egyptomania, Paris, 1994, pp. 38-41).
The table offered here, with its stylized Egyptian term uprights decorated with hieroglyphics, most closely resembles a table with similar uprights from the Robert Lehman collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is also painted to imitate Egyptian pink granite (see Humbert ibid., pp. 104-5, cat. 42).
Thus the Emperor Hadrian created an Egyptian pavilion to house his collection of Egyptian sculpture, while Raphael's frescoes for the Stanza dell'Incendio di Borgo in the Vatican incorporated stylized Egyptian figures after a sculpture of Hadrian's favourite companion, Antinous (for more on the influence of this particular image, see footnote to lot 306).
The celebrated collector Cardinal Alessandro Albani, whose sales of sculpture to the king of Poland in 1728 and to Pope Clement XII in 1734 today form an important part of the collections in Dresden and the Capitoline Museum, was one of the first connoisseurs in the 18th century to recognize the importance of Egyptian art. The Egyptian hall he created in Villa Albani in 1763 to house many of his Egyptian sculptures, proved to be enormously influential in promoting the taste for the Egyptian style and was published in drawings by Hubert Robert and the architect Charles Percier. This was followed by an Egyptian decorative scheme for the Caffe degli Inglesi by Piranesi (a designer more usually known for his promotion of the neoclassical taste), published in his Diversi Manieri di Ornare i Cammini in 1769, which also included several extravagantly conceived Egyptian style fireplaces. Soon after Prince Marcantonio Borghese commissioned the architect Antonio Asprucci to create an Egyptian Hall in the Villa Borghese, completed in 1782 and housing several important Egyptian sculptures in his collection, and the taste for architectural and decorative schemes in the style of ancient Egypt was well established among sophisticated connoisseurs in Italy (see J-M. Humbert et al., Egyptomania, Paris, 1994, pp. 38-41).
The table offered here, with its stylized Egyptian term uprights decorated with hieroglyphics, most closely resembles a table with similar uprights from the Robert Lehman collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is also painted to imitate Egyptian pink granite (see Humbert ibid., pp. 104-5, cat. 42).