A Pair of Italian Renaissance Revival Carved Walnut Brackets designed by Pietro Giusti and Carved by Gaetano Gosi, Siena, Late 19th Century

H. Blairman & Sons, London;

From whom acquired by Aso O. Tavitian, 13 April 2015.

These elaborate Neo-Renaissance brackets are proudly signed with the name of their carver, Gaetano Gosi, and the city of production, Siena. Gosi worked in the workshop of Pietro Giusti (1822-78), a designer and craftsman to whom several documented pieces are attributed, most notably a jewellery casket in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (1998.19). There is also a design by Giusti for a bracket closely similar to the present lot, now held in the Biblioteca Comunale in Siena and pictured in S. Chiarugi, Botteghe di Mobilieri in Toscana 1780–1900, Florence 1994, vol I, fig. 378. Intriguingly, the drawing is annotated ‘Rothschild’.