A FLORENTINE EBONY, WALNUT, FRUITWOOD AND MARQUETRY WRITING-TABLE

LATE 18TH CENTURY, IN THE MANNER OF MARCO CALESTRINI

Details

A FLORENTINE EBONY, WALNUT, FRUITWOOD AND MARQUETRY WRITING-TABLE
Late 18th Century, in the manner of Marco Calestrini
The quarter-veneered rectangular top inlaid with a central oval medallion of a huntsman and two dogs pursuing a stag within a stiff-leaf and chequer-banded border surmounted by a ram's headed urn issuing foliate arabesques and above a scallop-shell, the entwined Greek-key border inlaid with trailing foliage within an outer border with oval medallions of Diana, Venus and Cupid flanked by eagle-supported foliate trails and with portrait silhouettes to the angles, the frieze similarly inlaid with swan-supported and ribbon-tied foliate-trails of roses and other flowers and enclosing a paper-lined drawer, the angles with ribbon-tied silhouettes of nymphs on a green-stained ground, on octagonal tapering legs inlaid with husk and loop-trails and surmounted by foliate capitals above simulated flutes and later bras caps and castors, stamped 'COPE'S PATENT', restorations, the legs numbered 29, 30, 31, 32 and with label 'purchased at Florence 1846 by...'
29 in. (75 cm.) high; 38 in. (97 cm.) wide; 28 in. (73 cm.) deep

Provenance

Purchased in Florence in 1846.
Anonymous sale in these Rooms, 15 December 1994, lot 570.

Lot Essay

This table belongs to a group of similar tables made in the last decade of the 18th Century in Florence. The surrounding marquetry of the oval central panel with the scallop-shell to the top and base as well as the decoration of the edge of the top are nearly identical to that on a table illustrated in G. Morazzoni, Il Mobile Neoclassico Italiano, Milan, 1955, plate XCII, which is loosely attributed to Ignazio Revelli (d. 1836) of Piedmont. The overall appearance and the facetted legs as well as the medallion heads to each corner of the top are, however, even more closely related to a table in the Palazzo Pitti (E. Colle, I Mobili di Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1992, pp. 94-95, cat. 26). That table was acquired by the grandduke Ferdinand III on 27 May 1791 from the cabinet-maker Marco Calestrini (d. circa 1811), who also supplied a further four commodes to the palace in 1793.

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