A suite of Italian carved giltwood seat furniture, Rome, last quarter of the 18th century

Sotheby’s, London, Treasures, 9th July 2014, lot 51.

This elegant suite of carved giltwood seat furniture represents one of the very finest models within the repertory of Roman neoclassical seat furniture in the late 18th century. It is amongst three recorded suites of seat furniture which, without a doubt, originate from the same workshop. The other two recorded variants of this model are respectively at Ickworth House in Suffolk and the other, now dispersed, formerly at Wentworth Castle in Yorkshire. 

The six Roman armchairs, now in the Drawing Room at Ickworth House in Suffolk, are illustrated in the article by Mario Tavella ('A set of Roman neo-classical armchairs at Ickworth' in Apollo, Vol. CLI, No. 458 (April 2000), pp. 49-53). Tavella discusses at length the Ickworth suite, in particular the neoclassical armchairs which have almost identical carved husks on the frame and classical female masks with headdresses in the Antique manner to those upon this suite.

It is also instructive to compare the Ickworth armchairs and the present lot to a set which includes nine armchairs and one sofa. One of the armchairs was given to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. W.19-1973) but the rest of the set was sold by Sotheby's, London, 9 December 1994, lots 213 to 216, as all reputedly from Wentworth Castle and formerly in the Demidoff Collection at Villa San Donato, Fiesole.Their design is identical in size and in construction, they are made of the same materials (including the webbing) as the Ickworth set, the only difference being in the decoration of the frame. 

It is evident these suites of seating furniture were extensive and comprised several pieces. In fact an identical sofa to the one in the offered suite was sold with a provenance of Wynyard, County Durham, the former seat of the Londonderry family, at Sotheby's London, 10th December 2003, lot 170, where it was shown in situ in the Library in a photograph. Also see a virtually identical armchair which was with Ariane Dandois, Paris in 2003, with a provenance from the Collection of the Princes Colonna (illustrated by Enrico Colle, Il Mobile Neoclassico in Italia, Arredi e Decorazioni d’interni dal 1775 al 1800, Milan, 2005, p.157, no. 35) and subsequently offered for sale, Christie’s, New York, 20th May 2014, lot 297.  

Another closely related example is the seat furniture in Palazzo Spada and Palazzo Barberini in Rome (see Tavella, op. cit., p.52, fig. 10). All these armchairs share the same distinctive channeled frame and it is worthwhile noting that this frame can also be found on an armchair in the Mario Praz Collection, Palazzo, Primoli, Rome, illustrated by the same author, op. cit., p. 52, fig. 8, which has a different shaped back and anthemion decorated seat-rail, husk carved channelled frame and sabre legs.

The variation in the three sets of seat furniture and exclusivity of the model may well indicate that they were conceived as part of a very grand programme of redecoration, not dissimilar, as Mario Tavella reminds us, to that undertaken by the architect Antonio Asprucci (1723-1808), also curator of the Borghese Collections and father of Mario, for the Palazzo and Villa Borghese in Rome.