THIRD QUARTER 18TH CENTURY, VENICE

These chairs are part of a suite of furniture which belonged to Paolo Renier (1710-1789), the last Doge of Venice. A portrait of the Doge by Ludovico Gallina (1710-1789) (now in the Museo Civico, Padua) depicts Renier with a console table and armchairs from the suite. Other chairs from the suite are in the Ca'Rezzonico, the Cini Collection, the Wallace Collection (illustrated F.J.B. Watson, Wallace Collection Catalogues: Furniture, 1956, fig. 491-2, pl. 36) and various private collections. A group of armchairs were sold from the Donna delle Rose Collection in Venice, 1934, lot 364-71. In the catalogue G. Lorenzetti and L. Planiscig attributed the suite to the sculptor Antonio Coradini (c. 1700-1725) because of the stylistic similarities between it and fragments of the last state barge (Bucintorr) which was claimed to have been executed by Corradini. However, Alvar González-Palacios suggests that the suite may not be by Corradini and could be the work of a single anonymous workshop and dates to the third quarter of the 18th Century. It seems unlikely that Renier, who only became Doge in 1779, would have had himself painted with the furniture that was already thirty years old. That coupled with sylistic similarities between the suite and other pieces dated to the 1770s such as a picture frame for a portrait of Barnardo Castello now in the Ca'Rezzonico (illustrated ibid. fig. 786), would point to a date prior to 1779 for these chairs.
A further pair of side chairs from the suite was sold at Christie's London, 15 December 1994, lot 559.