A pair of Italian maple and amaranth inlaid armchairs Neapolitan, circa 1830

the curved backs terminating on carved sphinx on turned legs

Probably Casino della Regina, Boschetto di Capodimonte, Naples

Comparative Literature

Giancarlo Alisio, Civilta dell’Ottocento: le arti figurative, Napoli, 1997, pp. 181-92, ill. 6.59.
Valentino Brosio, Mobili italiani dell’Ottocento, Milano, 1962, p. 55.
Alvar González-Palacios, Il Patrimonio Artistico del Quirinale. Gli arredi italiani, Milano, 1996, n. 35

An interesting pair of chairs in overall good conserved condition. There are some minor replacements and cracks to the veneer notably to the arms and back splats. The sphinx terminals have restored cracks to the legs and tail and some areas of discolouration. The feet likewise have undergone some minor restoration. However these are ready to place due to the high level of conservation.
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These elegant armchairs belong to a group of furniture made for the ruling House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, which included four more pairs as well as chairs, sofas, console tables and mirrors, and recorded in the 1874 inventory of the Royal Palace of Naples.

This set was probably executed prior to 1837, when related pieces appear in a portrait by Vincenzo Abbiati of Queen Maria Isabella in a Biedermeier interior, possibly the “Casino della Regina” in the grounds of the Capodimonte Palace (Museo Praz, Rome). It is interesting to note how, in those very years, the cabinet-maker Michele di Laura was delivering analogously inlaid furniture for the same residences.

Following the unification of Italy, furniture often circulated between the royal palaces; thus, in 1884 two armchairs and two chairs from the same group were sent from Naples to Capodimonte, and one console table found its way to the Quirinale in Rome, illustrated in Palacios, op. cit., n. 35. A related armchair in the Museo Praz is illustrated by Brosio, op. cit., p. 55.

An identical armchair and from the same Royal commission is currently in the Royal Palace in Naples (exhibited in Civilta dell’Ottocento, Naples, 1997, op.cit.)