GENOA, SECOND QUARTER 18TH CENTURY, IN THE MANNER OF BARTOLOMEO STECCONE

This exceptionally finely carved mirror is representative of the early Barocchetto period of the second quarter of the 18th century, the Italian equivalent of the French Régence style. The boldly carved frame with its striking cresting displaying a combination of draped allegorical figures, putti, foliate sprays, floral swags and dramatic dragons is closely related to such finely carved mirrors and boiserie works as those of the interiors of the Palazzo Rosso in Genoa, property of the Brignole family. A closely related giltwood mirror in the Galleria of Palazzo Rosso is described by Gonzalez-Palacios as the work of Bartolomeo Steccone, who is recorded to have been paid for this work in 1738, probably executed after a design by Domenico Parodi (1672-1742, painter, sculptor and architect, and son of the famous sculptor Filippo Parodi). A protégé of Domenico Parodi who did numerous decorative patterns and designs for noble and aristoctatic interiors in Genoa, the young Steccone was recommended in 1735 by his master Parodi to the celebrated architect Filippo Juvarra, then in Spain and working at the Alcazar. Parodi writes of Steccone : ‘Mi prendo la libertà di porre sotto la sua protezione il latore il Sig. Steccone, persona di molta abilità negli intagli di legno……’ (A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Il Mobile in Liguria, Genoa, 1996, pp. 142 and 163-164, figs. 194-5). For other similarly carved Genoese mirrors displaying the popular dragon motif, see E. Colle, Il Mobile Rococò in Italia, Milan, 2003, pp. 248-52. A further north Italian giltwood mirror with a closely related carved decorative scheme sold Christie's, London, property from a Roman collector, 13 September 2007, lot 1267.