AN ITALIAN PIETRA DURA TOP FROM THE FLORENTINE GRAND DUCAL WORKSHOPS, AFTER DESIGNS BY ANTONIO CIOCI, 1793 ON A GILT-BRONZE MOUNTED BOULLE MARQUETRY TABLE BY ANTON STAUDINGER, VIENNA, CIRCA 1850

the rectangular top inlaid with the depiction of a teapot decorated with foliage, a cross-hatched tankard with a flower on top, an upturned cup and saucer decorated with flowers and a cockerel, a further cup decorated with a ribbon motif on the exterior and leaping fishes together with a shaped bowl, all with sprays of flowers on rockwork and a porphyry ground within a gilt-bronze foliate border;

the later rosewood and walnut Louis XV style table with a female bust on each knee surmounted by a c-scroll cartouche, the front and back with a further c-scroll foliate and flower cast cartouche, on cabriole legs terminating in scrolled feet, the whole decorated with brass and pewter tortoiseshell boulle work depicting scrolling foliage, the apron carved with scrolls and acanthus; with maker's stamp A. Staudinger in Wien

The pietre dure mosaic given by the Grand-Duke Ferdinand III of Tuscany in 1793 to Franz de Paul Ulrich, 3rd Prince Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau (1726-1797);

By descent with Princes Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau, Vienna;

Sold Dorotheum, Nachlass Furst Kinsky, Vienna, 28 February 2012, lot 102 (the top undocumented, the base wrongly attributed).

In overall good conserved condition. The top: The colour of the hardstones and the depiction of the crockery is beautifully executed. There is a square piece of porphyry towards the bottom left corner which is of a different tonality to the rest and is a later replacement – this is visible from the catalogue photograph. There are minor hairline cracks to the top right and left corners of the porphyry ground. The base: Very attractive detail to carving and the gilt-bronze mounts are a little dirty and would benefit from a light clean according to taste. The surface of the base with craquelure throughout and some fading in places to the tortoiseshell ground which would benefit from a repolish according to taste. There are very minor losses to tortoiseshell. There is a construction crack by one leg where it joins the frieze of the table but this can easily be filled. The rear left leg has been broken and restored and there appears to be another restoration to the reverse of the other leg.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The Kinsky Table by Alvar González-Palacios

This table top of Egyptian red porphyry inlaid with pietre dure, or hardstones, is well documented in the Archivio di Stato in Florence amongst the administrative  papers of the Grand Duke Ferdinand III (1769-1824) (fig.1).  Some documents dated 1793 (see appendix) clearly relate to the making of this object. On 11 October of that year the Director of the Galleria dei Lavori recorded that the costs of the table top (which was obviously already finished) amounted to 917 scudi, a figure that included a gratuity payment to the workers who had had to work overtime in order to complete the commission as swiftly as possible. The table was a gift from His Royal Highness, Grand Duke Ferdinand III of Habsburg-Lorraine, to the Prince Kinsky. The craftsmen rewarded for their work were Damiano Jacopucci, Francesco Stradi, Antonio Gianvitter, Francesco Pucci and Giovanni Battista Soldi (doc.1). Another document in the archive (doc.2) bearing the same date describes what the gift made by the Grand Duke to Prince Kinsky looked like:  a porphyry table top with pietre dure commessi showing porcelain vases.  Document 4, also bearing the same date, repeats the description adding that the table top had a bronze frame (which still survives) and a carved and gilded support (now lost). Document 6 specifies that on 6 July 1793 the carver Lorenzo Dolci was paid for the support for the porphyry table given to Prince Kinsky. Finally Document 7 shows how on 7 October 1793 Antonio Mariotti needed reimbursement for the cost of the packing case for the pietre dure table given to “Principe Ulrico Kinshij”, which was very probably despatched to Vienna in the same year. 

Some of this information is confirmed in the “Ruolo stabile della Real Galleria di Lavori” of Florence from the year before, in May 1792, which I have previously published (1). In that list, amongst the sottomaestri, or assistant masters, the name of Damiano Jacopucci appears (he was a member of a family of Florentine commettitori, the craftsmen who specialised in this form of stone inlay, the most famous of whom, in the middle of the eighteenth century, was Giovanni Battista); Francesco Stradi and Antonio Mariotti appear as ‘operai‘ - workers as do the ‘segatori’ – sawmen, Francesco Pucci and G. B. Soldi. Antonio Gianvitter is the same Antonio Pranevitter who I listed  (and who was already working in the Gallery in 1784 when he is recorded as Antonio Granevitter – his surname which is clearly German in origin is written in different ways). The Director of the Real Galleria dei Lavori in 1792 was Luigi Siries (the son of Cosimo who had died a few years earlier and was a member of a famous family of artists and directors of the Grand-Ducal workshops).

The documents that appear here do not mention who might have designed the table (which is only to be expected as they record the payments to the stone cutters who made the table top).  It shows, with a liveliness and dynamism that is almost surreal, an irregular stone slab which seems to float in the space and upon which are placed six pieces of porcelain in different colours and four stems bearing flowers (yellowish jasmine, light blue convolvulus and red and white anenomes).  In the middle sits a globular teapot typical of the Marchese Ginori porcelain manufactory at Doccia, near Florence. On the right an upside down coffee cup rests against a porcelain saucer of Yongzheng famille rose pallette; in the foreground is a two handled white and yellow shaped ecuelle and to the left is a blue ground covered tankard with a handle and rococo style finial both also from the Ginori factory. Beside this is a little cup with tiny blue fish painted around the inside (2).

Although the documents do not tell us, we know who might have designed this table top because of a pictorial, rather than a written source, that illustrates it. It is an oil painting on canvas, documented as being by Antonio Cioci, the designer in the Galleria at that time. The painting model dates to 1786 and is in the  Museo dell’Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence (3) (fig.3). It shows with great precision the six pieces of porcelain that appear on the Kinsky table top but they are arranged alongside other Oriental objects which are larger in size. The composition is, however, very similar and all the porcelain is laid out on a cut slab which has been left in its natural state.  It seems to me beyond doubt that at the end of 1792 or the beginning of 1793 Antonio Cioci’s model was adapted for the table featured here which was finished, as I have discovered, in October 1793.

Antonio Cioci was employed in the Galleria dei Lavori di Firenze at the end of 1771 and died on 15 November 1792. Immediately afterwards his son, Leopoldo Cioci, began work as designer and was in charge of selecting the stones for the Galleria.  It may be that he adapted his father’s design for this table(4).

Prince Kinsky was a member of one of the most important Bohemian families and was closely linked to the Habsburg Lorraine dynasty. It should be remembered that Leopold II had been Grand Duke of Tuscany until 1790, using the name Pietro Leopoldo.  His eldest son left with him for Vienna in 1790, becoming Emperor Francis II shortly afterward, in 1792, on the premature death of his father. The Grand Duke Ferdinand III, the second son of Leopold II, was frequently in Vienna, where he celebrated his wedding to his cousin Luisa in 1790 (5).

In 1786, Antonio Cioci  provided the model for the table top laid with porcelain objects, which  together with its pendant was to have been copied in pietre dure.  In 1789 both of these canvases remained unused in the Galleria.  It was only decided to have them made in pietre dure in 1792, and instead of using a porphyry ground the so-called nephritic stone, a type of jade, from Egypt was chosen. In 1795 the first of these two tables was completed but work on the other took many more years.  Complex historical circumstances and the extreme difficulties caused by the Napoleonic wars, meant that it was not finished until 1803. Both pietre dure tables, were taken to France under Napoleon, but are now in the Palazzo Pitti. They are larger in size than the Kinsky Table and the nephritic ground is an oily green, which together with their more elaborate porcelain compositions gives them a completely different character (6). By way of contrast Antonio Cioci has given particular emphasis, in the Kinsky Table,  to the single objects as they float upon the blood red porphyry background to wonderful and distinctive effect.         

It is almost certain that Prince Kinsky was in Florence in 1793 as the documents record that on 14 October of that year “Signora Principessa Kinshij, e per detta dal signor Luigi Siries, reca £ 666.13.4  e sono per valuta di un coperchio e un fondo per una scatola fattovi di commesso vasi, e fiori” (7).

A carved support for the porphyry table top was made and gilded between July and October 1793 by the carver Lorenzo Dolci, as is shown in document 6 (8). This support has not been identified and is now lost and probably destroyed.  However a few decades later a much richer Boulle style base was made which was more in sympathy with the prevailing Austrian taste for the rococo.   

Notes

(1) A. González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto. Il Granducato di Toscana e gli Stati settentrionali, Milan , 1986, p. 136.

(2) The tankard is identical to one illustrated by L. Ginori Lisci, La porcellana di Doccia, Milano, 1963, pl. 48 where it is described as a “tazza da birra" - beer cup and is dated 1774.

(3) A.M. Giusti, P. Mazzoni, A. Pampaloni Martelli, Il Museo dell’Opificio delle Pietre Dure a Firenze, Milan, 1978, cat. 544; González-Palacios, cit., fig. 248.

4 González-Palacios, cit., p. 86. This information is in Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Imperiale e Real Corte, 5128, c. 87 (the number of the sheaf of documents was at one time 2375); for Leopoldo Cioci see the same publication, passim.

(5) Luisa Bourbon was the daughter of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina of Austria.  It should be noted that another person mentioned in document 1, Marchese Manfredini, was tutor and then Maggiordomo and Consigliere to the Grand Duke.  On the death of the Emperor Leopoldo II in 1792, Manfredini went with the young Grand Duke to arrange the financial affairs of the two brothers in 1792.

(6) This complex issue was analysed in González-Palacios, cit., pp. 87, 88 and Appendix II, docs. 63, 64, 71, 75, 79, 85 and 86. In the same publication the two tables with nephritic grounds are illustrated at figs 249 and 250.

(7) ‘Signora Princess Kinskij, as signor Luigi Siries states, brings £666.13.4 to the administration of the Galleria for a cover and a bottom for a box made of commessi with vases and flowers’.  Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Imperiale e Real Corte, 5166 (Libro Maestro, Galleria dei Lavori, A, 1793 c. 34 a destra, voce "Ritratto di generi venduti"). I do not know the current whereabouts of this object or whether it was completed, nor do I know what its dimensions were.  

(8) For Dolci see González-Palacios, cit., passim and  in particular E. Colle, I mobili di Palazzo Pitti. Il primo periodo lorenese, Florence, 1992, passim and pp. 220 ff. 

Translated by Emma Bassett

Appendix

1. Archivio di Stato di Firenze; Imperiale e Real Corte, 5128; (Galleria dei Lavori, Affari diversi n. 100r.)

"In sequela di Rappresentanza de' 9 stante, con cui il Direttore della Real Galleria dei Lavori accompagna una tavola di commesso in pietre dure, e ne domanda increditamento del valore in Scudi 917, compresa in detta somma una straordinaria recognizione a favore di diversi lavoranti di quel Dipartimento per essersi dovuti impiegare nel terminarla con celerità oltre le ore prescritte dai Regolamenti veglianti, è stato rescritto come appresso…

Sua Altezza Reale approva l'esecuzione della tavola di cui si tratta, già fattasi dalla Reale Altezza Sua passare in dono al Principe Kinscky per mezzo del suo Maggior Domo Maggiore marchese Manfredini, e vuole che del valore della medesima nella somma risultante dall'ingiunta nota in scudi Novecentodiciassette, sia secondo il consueto accreditata la Galleria dei Lavori nella scrittura della Guardaroba generale riguardante quell'azienda.

Inoltre concede agli infrascritti lavoranti che... hanno travagliato alla tavola predetta, una recognizione in aumento di mercede in somma di scudi cinquantanove, da pagarsi loro dall'istessa Guardaroba generale, repartita come appresso, cioè:

a Damiano Iacopucci scudi ventiquattro...

Francesco Stradi scudi dieci...

Antonio Gianvitter scudi nove...

Francesco Pucci scudi otto...

Giovan Battista Soldi scudi otto...

E dalla Segreteria della Corona e di Corte si partecipino in conformità gli ordini opportuni.

Dato li 11 ottobre 1793”.

(Seguono le firme del sovrano, di Luigi Bartolini che ne ha preso visione, e del segretario Huart).

2. Archivio di Stato di Firenze; Imperiale e Real Corte, 5166; (Libro Maestro Galleria dei Lavori, A 1793 a carta 12 a destra)

"11 ottobre £ 1820 [La Guardaroba generale] Fa buone [al magazziniere della Real Galleria dei Lavori Pietro Giusti] il conto donativi al suddetto per la valuta delle pietre occorse nella Formazione di una piccola Tavola di Porfido fattavi di Commesso di Pietre dure Vasi di Porcellana, stata regalata da Sua Altezza Reale al Principe Kinski"

3. Archivio di Stato di Firenze; Imperiale e Real Corte, 5166, (Libro Maestro Galleria dei Lavori, A 1793 a carta 39 a destra) 

"11 ottobre  £ 3920 [La Guardaroba Generale] fa buone il conto donativi per la Manifattura della Tavola di Porfido intarsiatovi in pietre dure vasi di porcellana, regalata questa al Principe Kinski”

4. Archivio di Stato di Firenze; Imperiale e Real Corte, 5166; (Libro Maestro Galleria dei Lavori, A 1793 a carta 47 a sinistra)

"Adi 11 Ottobre £ 6419 Buone agl'appresso conti, e sono la valuta data dal Direttore della Real Galleria alla Tavola di Porfido intarsiatovi Commesso di Pietre dure rappresentanti Vasi di Porcellana con cornice di bronzo, e suo piede intagliato, e dorato, stata questa regalata da Sua Altezza Reale al Principe Kinski"

5. Archivio di Stato di Firenze; Imperiale e Real Corte, 5166 (Libro Maestro Galleria dei Lavori, A 1793 a carta 48 a destra) 

"11 ottobre £ 4599 Fa buone il Conto donativi per la Manifattura della Piccola Tavola in Pietre dure, rappresentante Vasi di Porcellana, stata questa Regalata da Sua Altezza Reale al Principe Kinschi"

6. Archivio di Stato di Firenze; Imperiale e Real Corte, ????, (carta 32 a sinistra e a destra)

“a Lorenzo Dolci il 6 luglio 1793 pagato anticipo di £ 140, con saldo di £ 84 al 19 luglio, per l'intaglio  ad un piede di tavola”

"1793 adi 11 ottobre £ 266 Fa buone il conto donativi e sono la valuta del Piede di Tavola di Porfido regalata da Sua Altezza Reale al Principe Kinski "

7. Archivio di Stato di Firenze; Imperiale e Real Corte, 5209, n. 59;

 "a 7 ottobre 1793 La Real Galleria dei Lavori deve dare a Antonio Mariotti per suo rimborso di spese occorse per la cassa e imballatura di una tavolina di pietre dure... e regalata da Sua Altezza Reale a Sua Altezza il Principe Ulrico Kinshij

The base

This top's base was made by - and carries the stamp of - one of Vienna’s leading cabinet-makers, Anton Staudinger, and not by the Carl Leistler firm, to whom it had been previously attributed. To replace the Florentine carved giltwood base by Lorenzo Dolci, Staudinger created a Louis XV design with a boulle-work decorated surface, resulting in a successful combination between the sumptuous base and a more subtle pictorial top, perfectly in line with contemporary stately taste. 

Information about Anton Staudinger and his oeuvre is still scarce, but he is mentioned in 1833 on a list of craftsmen working in Vienna (Notizen über Produktion, Kunst, Fabriken Und Gewerbe). He had become a ‘Tischlermeister’ (master cabinet-maker) in 14 June 1828 and had his business in the Viennese Weiden district at Haupstrasse, 450. 

Anton Staudinger exhibited at the third Vienna Industrial Exhibition (Allgemeine Gewerbeausstellung) in 1845, where he presented furniture made of rosewood with ‘Bull-Decoration’, such the present table. The exhibition catalogue refers to him as one of the best cabinet-makers in Vienna delivering “beautiful, solid and diligent work of good style”.

Prince Franz de Paul Ulrich Kinsky

The recipient of this gift was the third Prince Kinsky von Wchinitz and Tettau - Franz de Paul Ulrich. Born in one of the family’s palaces, Zlonice, in 1726, he married the Countess Maria Sidonie von Hohenzollern-Hechingen in 1749. Three years later, upon the death of his first cousin Franz Joseph, and 2^nd Prince Kinsky, he became the head of the family.

He had an outstanding military career, having fought in several battles of the Seven Years’ War where he was wounded on multiple occasions. He rose through the ranks of the Imperial Army to achieve its highest rank – Field-Marshall – in 1778. He was in the Privy Council and was given the Order of the Golden Fleece and the Military Order of Maria Theresa. Although some sources wrongly place his death in 1792, he died in Prague in 1797.