A pair of Italian silver wine coolers, designed by Giuseppe Valadier, made by Roberto Tombesi, Rome, 1815-1822

Daniele di Castro e Anna Maria Pedrocchi, "Giuseppe Valadier e il Servizio di Palazzo Pallavicini," Antologia di Belle Arti, nuova serie, n. 39-42 (1991-92): 111-114

Alvar Gonzáles-Palacios, Il Gusto Dei Principi, 1993, nos. 366-368, p. 200 (designs and coolers from the Odescalchi service)

Valadier: Three Generations of Roman Goldsmiths: An exhibition of drawings and works of art. London: Artemis Group / David Carritt Limited, 1991, no. 70, p. 128.

These coolers almost certainly formed part of the Rospigliosi-Pallavicini service, begun in 1803 by Giuseppe Valadier and continued by other silversmiths, including Tombesi. 

The forms and motifs of the Rospigliosi-Pallavicini service - the vertical fluting, lion heads, and Vitruvian scrolls - repeat those devised by Giuseppe Valadier for the Odescalchi service in the mid 1790s (see Gonzáles-Palacios 1993, fig. 354-387, and Valadier, nos. 68-70 and 74a-b).  Ordered by Monsignor Antonio Odescalchi and delivered between 1795 and 1797, it was sold by that family in 1798, just after its completion.  However, it provided the model for the service for the related Rospigliosi-Pallavicini family six years later.

Two designs for the wine coolers survive from the Valadier workshop (Gonzáles-Palacios 1993, fig. 367-368).  The first is a rough design, with details such as the height of the central boss still being debated, while the second is a carefully shaded and rendered presentation drawing.  At least one pair of wine coolers from the Odescalchi service, stamped by Valadier, survive in a private collection (illustrated ibid., fig. 366).  The pieces of the first service are stamped with the owner's mark of a cup, from the Odescalchi arms (illustrated ibid., fig. 392), allowing the two services to be differentiated

Giuseppe Valadier delivered the first elements of the Rospigliosi-Pallavicini service between 1803 and 1805.  These included second-course dishes, large and small oval platters, vegetable dishes, and two double salts, all still at the Palazzo; the archives also list in 1804 two tureens and stands and four oval glass coolers, lost but probably matching the examples from the Odescalchi service, and an "Egyptian" candelabra.

Although the dinner plates were ordered from Valadier, twenty-four of the plates now at the Palazzo bear the mark of Alessandro Maldura and the city mark for 1805-07; he also supplied further oval platters in sizes.  Maldura ceased work by 1808, and other round and rectangular platters preserved at the Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini were made by Giuseppe Miller in 1807-09.

Between 1809 and 1815, during the French occupation of Rome, nothing more was delivered.  However, from 1815 the service was greatly extended by Roberto Tombesi.  He had served as a workshop head in the Valadier shop from 1785 to 1792.  After setting up on his own, he delivered carriage ornaments for the wedding of Benedetto Pallavicini and Vittoria Colonna around 1806. 

In early 1815 Tombesi augmented the Valadier service with two round platters, followed by sixty plates, six platters, six double salts, and two sugar vases, all preserved at the Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini.  The sugar vases in particular are smaller versions of the wine-cooler form (illsutrated Castro e Pedrocchi, fig. 4, p. 114).

These coolers must have been finished before May 21, 1822, when Tombesi committed suicide by throwing himself out of his window into the river (in 1785, Luigi Valadier had similarly committed suicide by throwing himself into the Tiber).  None of Tombesi deliveries, post 1815,  seem to be recorded in the Rospigliosi-Pallavicini archives (as cited in the Castro and Pedrocchi article).  However, the date and maker support the idea that these coolers were originally part of the group at Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini and were later separated, along with the soup tureens and glass coolers.  Unfortunately, there is no heraldic engraving on any of the pieces, nor a place for it indicated on the Valadier designs.

This makes it difficult to establish the original patron of the Rospigliosi-Pallavicini service.  The two possibilities are Giuseppe Rospigliosi-Pallavicini and his son Julio Cesare Rospigliosi.  The father (1755-1833) married in 1775 Ottavia Odescalchi, for whose family Valadier had designed the first service of this model.  A keen patron of the arts, he built up an important collection of paintings and served as maggiordomo maggiore to the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

His son (1781-1859) married Margarita Gioemi Colonna in 1803, and this service was probably ordered for the festivities if not for the new couple themselves.  Their children divided the Rospigliosi and Pallavicini inheritences, including sharing the family palazzo.  The Pallavicini patrimony has been kept largely together and today forms a private museum, including part of the Valadier service.  The Rospigliosi branch sold their part of the palazzo and most of their collections in two sales in Rome in the mid 1930s.