拍品专文
These obelisks are closely related in character to the goût expounded by Nicolas Demidoff (d.1828), who moved to Rome in 1818 and was appointed Russian minister to the Tuscan Court in 1822. Elevated as Count of San Donato by the Grand Duke, Demidoff proceeded to amass his truly remarkable collection. As the celebrated San Donato sale catalogue of 1880 reveals, the Demidoff's had a particular penchant for items with pietra dura bases, and indeed in the 1830's his son Anatole recieved several items of pietra dura in exchange for his gift to the Grand Duke of 1200 specimen minerals from the Demidoff's Taguil mines. It is interesting to note, therefore that the bases include rare specimen hardstones and porphyry of a type more often mined in Northern Europe and Sweden.
The pedestal's panelled tablets of Roman pietra dure are likely to have been re-used, along with the vases from an early 17th Century reliquary frame, such as that displayed in the Palazzo Pallavicini (A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Fasto Romano, Rome, 1991, p.150, no.72). A similar pedestal, supporting a 17th Century rock chrystal bust of a Roman Emperor, is in the Wallace Collection (J.G.Mann, Wallace Collection Catalogue, Sculpture, London, 1931, S.51).
The pedestal's panelled tablets of Roman pietra dure are likely to have been re-used, along with the vases from an early 17th Century reliquary frame, such as that displayed in the Palazzo Pallavicini (A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Fasto Romano, Rome, 1991, p.150, no.72). A similar pedestal, supporting a 17th Century rock chrystal bust of a Roman Emperor, is in the Wallace Collection (J.G.Mann, Wallace Collection Catalogue, Sculpture, London, 1931, S.51).