A rare and very fine Italian polychrome painted and parcel-gilt walnut credenza, Sienese first half 16th century

with a moulded rectangular overhanging top above two hinged doors with turned walnut handles, enclosing two shelves, the inside of the left door with an illegible paper label inscribed in ink, flanking two further panels decorated with Berainesque motifs including cherubs, eagles suspending tassels above neoclassical fruit-filled urns above grotesques, military trophies and winged satyrs, flanked on either side by similarly decorated panels, the left with a banner inscribed, 'La casa e facta' above 'Come la lupa' the far right panel with a banner, 'chi piu ue rega' above 'piv resem nvca?' the sides painted to simulate marble centred by a roundel depicting a cherub, on a platform base with bracket feet

Sold from the collection of Commendatore Elia Volpi, American Art Galleries, New York, 1917, lot 489, (where the painting was attributed to Baldassare Peruzzi of Siena, a noted artist who was a contemporary of Raphael) see fig.1 and 2.
Carl W. Hamilton, United States  in the 1920's.
Transferred to Alfred Hayes, the executor of Edith B. Woolverton deceased in May 1932.
Transferred by  William H. Woolverton to Edith Woolverton Cone on 1st July 1935.  

The Catalogue of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy Albright Art Gallery-December 18th, 1926-January 17, 1927, 259, described.  

Old marks, chips and scratches as visible from photo. Decoration is worn in places as visible from photo, which is commensurate with age. The far right and left handles are ebonised and are later replacements. There are construction cracks generally on the left panel on the front and the right panel on the front. There are some construction cracks on the joints. Some minor sections of moulding missing due to insect damage, on the moulding on the top right side, but is stable now. The moulding to the rear right edge has possibly been replaced. Partially rebacked. The moulding at the base of the right side looks later and the top is probably a later replacement. The hinges are replaced. Charming detail to decoration. A very rare piece. In otherwise good condition. Collector's piece. Excellent Provenance. Highly Recommended.
"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."

Comparative Literature:
R.Ferrazza, Palazzo Davanzati e le collezioni di Elia Volpi, Centro di della Edifimi, Firenze, 1994.
W.Odom, A History of Italian Furniture from the the fourteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, Vol. I, The Archive Press, New York, 1966, p. 139, plate 122.
Peter Thornton, The Italian Renaissnce Interior, 1400-1600, New York, 1991.

Interior decoration in Renaissance Italy and the taste for the `grottesche':
This rare credenza with its grottesche and candelabra type ornaments reflects the contemporary taste in domestic interior decoration in Italy during the Renaissance. Small rooms were covered with marble but a cheaper alternative to this was painting the plaster and muralling the walls to inmitate marble, as on the sides of this credenza for example. More elaborate schemes such as frescoes were also a feature of these interiors.

The discovery of ancient classical ruins of classical Rome, such as the Niké in a Roman garden, Apollo Belvedere and the Laocöon, provided another source of inspiration and ancient wall-paintings were also discovered. There are engraved on the vaults of the Domus Aurea (Golden House) of Nero, built after the great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, the names of Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Pinturicchio, Lippi, Michaelangelo and Raphael amongst others who lowered themselves down into the grotteschi on boards knotted to ropes.

These discoveries inspired and provided Renaissance Italians artists and designers with a vast repertory of classical ornament from which to copy and indeed use as a direct source of inspiration. The earliest centred around `la candelabra' a vertical symmetrical arrangement of scrolls to either side of a central stalk, the scrolls treated naturally with foliage or sometimes with grotesques.   

The other form of decoration which was popularised in the Renaissance was the grottesche as the form was found in the grotte underground. Chests were painted and as the art historian Vasari pointed out in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries `the most excellent painters' were prepared to carry out this type of work `which they did without shame as would be the case today'- (that is in the mid 16^th century).

In the past the paintings on chests and furniture and the artists who carried out such work were mostly concentrated in Florence. Most of the Florentine painter-decorators were independent artists. However, in the 16^th century, painting played a lesser role in the decoration of furniture and furniture was made en suite to the mural decoration in a room.

Important apartments when they were not panelled with wood or hung with tapestries and fine velvets or damasks, were covered with frescoes as in the previous century. Frescoed walls according to Odom, op. cit., `were the crowning glory of the palace and villa, but unfortunately few of domestic origin have been preserved; most of those survivng adorn ecclesiastical buildings' . The Borgia appartments in the Vatican, painted by Pinturicchio and the Loggia of Raphael in the same Palace, are amongst the finest surviving examples of well-preserved fresco decoration of this period. Painted wall decoration was sometimes placed above panelled dadoes and arranged in large panels flanked by decorative pilasters.

The Raphael Loggia in the Vatican certainly influenced contemporary designs as illustrated by Odom, op. cit., p. 139, fig. 122, see the armoire then in the Davanzati Palace, Florence, which is almost identical in its painted decoration to that on this credenza, formerly in the Bardini collection, Florence, reproduced here in fig.3. The decoration of  the latter has been attributed to Sodoma. It has a plain outline with tall rectangular  panels painted with playful whimsical grotesques and putti framed with receding mouldings which recalls the `simplicity and richness of this period summed up in one of the finest existing painted specimens of the High Renaissance.' 

Furthermore, there are strong similarities between the vault and the ceiling figures of the Piccomolini Library and those on this piece which were  attributed to Bernadetto di Betti, called Pinturicchio, reproduced here in fig. 4. It is also worthwhile noting the frescoes in Sant' Onofrio on the Janiculan Hill in Rome which have been attributed to both Peruzzi and Pinturicchio, the latter a renowned painter of grotesques dating back to the Borgia appartments in Rome in 1494. In 1502, Pintoricchio was awarded a contract to decorate the newly built Piccolomini Library, located off the nave of the Siena Cathedral, which he executed between 1503 and 1508. However, it has not been possible to date to attribute the decoration on the offered credenza to a particular painter.

The origins of the credenza:

The sacristy cupboard of the Early Renaissance was a forerunner of the credenza. Furniture design of this period was strongly influenced by Ecclesiastical furnishings and the credenza or domestic cupboard, especially the Tuscan credenza, though less important in scale and design, bears the closest resemblance to its ecclesiastical contemporary.

Elia Volpi and Palazzo Davanzati, Florence:

Elia Volpi (1858-1938) became a legendary figure at the beginning of the 20th century, as one of the greatest collectors and dealers of Medieval and Renaissance Art. He largely contributed to the formation of the great American collections of Renaissance Art. Trained at the School of another equally gifted Florentine dealer, Stefano Bardini, he dominated the Renaissance Art scene in Florence during the first thirty years of the 20th century. His activities coincided with particular historical and social events, when numerous works of art left the monasteries of the dispersed orders and when entire furnishings were sold from Palazzi and country villas of aristocratic families whose fortunes were dissipated.

At the same time the taste for the Primitives and Renaissance Art imposes itself upon Europe and America where important private and public collections were forming. Very cleverly Elia Volpi took advantage of this situation and in 1904 he purchased Palazzo Davanzati where he established until 1924 his gallery, faithfully reproducing the Renaissance interiors of a Florentine Palazzo (the Palazzo re-opened in 1956, as the Museo Statale della Casa Fiorentina Antica).

Perhaps his most inspired idea was the organisation between 1910-1927 of important auctions in Florence and America solely devoted to Renaissance Art. The most memorable was in conjunction with the American Art Association, in New York in 1917 and which attracted the international press. These auctions fuelled the passions of important American collectors which in turn were valued clients to Elia Volpi, such as Von Bode, J. Pierpont Morgan, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Duveen, the Rothschilds, the Vanderbilts and the Metropolitan Museum of New York.