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Lot Essay
This table is reputed to have belonged to Cardinal Fesch (d.1839). In 1803 the Cardinal was appointed as minister plenipotentiary to the Holy See, and aggrandised the Palazzo del Buffalo-Ferraioli, in Rome's Piazza Colonna in an imperial manner fit for the reception of his nephew Emperor Napoleon.
Some of its furnishings, executed by the brothers Lorenzo and Dionisio Santi, were later engraved for publication in M.Santi's, Modèles de meubles et de décorations intérieures pour l'ameublement, Paris, 1828. The Cardinal was recalled to Paris in 1806. Unfortunately the table is not listed amongst the contents of his Paris hôtel drawn up in 1815 on behalf of the 'Restauration' government following Napoleon's abdication in 1815, nor in the inventory of the Palazzo Falconieri made in 1839. (L. Wood, 'Le mobilier du cardinal Fesch' in Les Bonaparte et l'Italie, Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, 2001, pp.85-88).
Some of its furnishings, executed by the brothers Lorenzo and Dionisio Santi, were later engraved for publication in M.Santi's, Modèles de meubles et de décorations intérieures pour l'ameublement, Paris, 1828. The Cardinal was recalled to Paris in 1806. Unfortunately the table is not listed amongst the contents of his Paris hôtel drawn up in 1815 on behalf of the 'Restauration' government following Napoleon's abdication in 1815, nor in the inventory of the Palazzo Falconieri made in 1839. (L. Wood, 'Le mobilier du cardinal Fesch' in Les Bonaparte et l'Italie, Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, 2001, pp.85-88).