NAPLES, SECOND HALF 18TH CENTURY

This geometric arrangement of specimen marble samples of pietra del Vesuvio, often combined with meandering borders, is typical of the Neapolitan production of the second half of the 18th century. These tops, composed of various sorts of Lava expelled by Mount Vesuvius at different volcanic eruptions, were very much in favour throughout Europe in the second half of the 18th century. When Charles Bourbon (d. 1788), son of Philip V of Spain, arrived at his Palazzo Reale in Naples in 1734, he immediately placed extensive commissions with local craftsmen to decorate the Palazzo in this fashionable technique. He transferred a number of artisans from the Medici workshops in Florence, including some responsible for the manufacture of pietre dure to Naples in 1737. He recruited Francesco Ghinghi, whom he had met while visiting the Grand Ducal Pietre Dure Workshop in Florence as a child, to direct the Royal Pietre Dure atelier. Established at San Carlo alle Mortelle in 1737 with nine Tuscan employees, the workshop was responsible for the manufacture of highly ambitious projects as the Royal chapel tabernacle at Caserta in 1753, as well as numerous and much admired pietre dure tops of pictorial and geometrical design. One such admirer, the Abbé Richard, remarked: There are workers in Naples who are singularly skilled at working marble and making inlaid tables in which foreign visitors are very interested.

Various closely related tops to the present lot are discussed and illustrated in A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Las Colecciones Reales Espanolas de Mosaicos y Pietras Duras, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, n.56, p.264, n.60, pp.272-3.