An Italian mahogany, ebony and brass mechanical secretaire, Florence, early 19th century, attributed to Giovanni Socci (1775-1842)

Galerie Kugel, Paris.

The marvels of furniture equipped with mechanisms and innovative features, have continually fascinated both collectors and craftsmen. This secrétaire mécanique is certainly the work of Giovanni Socci, a talented Italian cabinetmaker of the Empire style. Several similar models attributed to him, with prestigious provenance, can be found in important public collections including the Château de Fontainebleau, the Palazzo Pitti and the Musée du Louvre.

Mechanical furniture was particularly sought after from the 18th century and furniture by Socci, compact and of an elegant shape, found favour with Royalty and during the French Empire. This desk is fascinating due to a complex mechanism of counterweights and gears that allows the user to slide a chair from the main body, pull out a surface that reveals a further shelf, which can, if necessary, be tilted for use as a lectern. Then, a shelf with compartments, used to store letters and writing accessories, can be raised at the back. 

Giovanni Socci replicated this model five times, with some variations and mostly all signed, and all now in very important museum collections:

-a desk initially delivered in 1807 to Marie-Louise de Bourbon, daughter of King Charles IV of Spain and which later belonged to Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi, Napoleon I's elder sister and Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Bearing an Egyptian nephrite top, this is now in the Château de Fontainebleau (inv. GME1461);

-a desk for Marie-Louise de Bourbon dated from 1807 with gilt-bronze mounts and paw feet in Palazzo Pitti, Florence, inv. nr . MPP 1911, n.14138 (illustrated in Enrico Colle, I Mobili di Palazzo Pitti, il secondo periodo lorenese 1800-1846, Florence, 2000, pp. 102-103);

-a signed desk dated from 1820 made for Marie-Louise de Bourbon at Palazzo Pitti, inv. nr . MPP 1911, n.17182;

-a desk dated from 1820, formerly with Audrey B. Love in America and now in the collections of the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. nr. OA 12161, ill. S. Chiarugi, Botteghe di mobilieri in Toscana, Firenze 1994, vol.1, p.102, fig.86);

-one entirely in mahogany in Villa Necchi Campiglio in Milan.

Giovanni Socci (ca.1775-1842)

Giovanni Socci is the best known member of a dynasty of Tuscan cabinetmakers already active in the 18th century. His domicile was located in Ponte a Ema where he was born, but he is also recorded to have had a workshop in Florence, at nr. 1375 at the Fondacci di San Niccolà, near Piazza dei Mozzi. He soon became the head of an important workshop able to take on the construction of fine furniture and carpentry commissions. He was a member of the Conservatorio di Arti e Mestieri in Florence and actively presented his new inventions to benefit the art of cabinetmaking. Other furniture pieces by Socci are at Palazzo Pitti (see Enrico Colle, Il Mobile Impero, Milan, 2000, pp.160-161).

Mechanical desks were not his only innovation, as, together with his brother Luigi, he built some hinged shutters for Palazzo Niccolini and Casa Martinengo. His workshop is also responsible for larger carpentry works such as the construction of the gigantic bridge roof used for the execution of alfresco paintings in the dome of in the Chapel of the Princes in San Lorenzo, or the construction of the doors of Porta alla Croce in Florence’s piazza Beccaria. 

Upon his death, Giovanni Socci's workshop was left to his two sons, Vincenzo (ca.1880-1882) and Fedele.