A TUSCAN NEOCLASSICAL BURR MAPLE AND PARCEL GILT DAYBED ON PLINTH, PROBABLY LUCCA, CIRCA 1820

Villa Mansi, Segromigno in Monte, Lucca

Christie's London, 11 June 1998, lot 55

Valentino Brosio, Mobili dell'Ottocento, Milan 1968, p.131

Anna-Maria Massinelli, Il Mobile Toscano, Milan 1993, pp.96-101

Derrick Worsdale, 'Later Neoclassical Florentine Furniture at Palazzo Pitti,' Furniture History XIV, 1978, pp.49-57.

Tuscany remained an important centre for neoclassical furniture design in the first quarter of the 19^th century, with Florence and Lucca the main cities of production under the patronage of Napoleon’s sister Elisa Bacicocchi, Princess of Piombino and Lucca and Grand Duchess of Tuscany (1777-1820). Elisa embarked upon a programme of refurbishing the duchy’s official residences, firstly using the French émigré Jean-Baptiste Youf (d.1838) and then the Florentine Giovanni Socci (active 1807-1840). Both continued to supply ducal and aristocratic palaces after the fall of Napoleon and return of the Habsburg-Lorrain and Bourbon-Parma rulers to Tuscany, aided by local cabinetmakers including Giuseppe Colzi and Jacopo Ciacchi.

The distinctive inverted dome on the present lot appears on several pieces of furniture created in Florence in c.1820, including a round stool by Ciacchi in the Villa Medici Petraia, Castello, and a console-jardinière by Colzi in the Palazzo Pitti. The giltwood simulated rope netting is a motif also seen on a pair of semicircular commodes imitating drums by Ciacchi in the music salon of the Palazzo Pitti, which gave the room its unofficial name of the Sala dei Tamburi (all illustrated in Worsdale, plates 58B, 59A and 59B).

The Villa Mansi is a 16^th-century villa and gardens located in the hills about 12km northwest of Lucca. It was acquired in the 17^th century by the silk merchant Ottavio Mansi, whose descendants in the 18^th century refurbished the property in the rococo style and employed Filippo Juvarra to design the gardens and hydraulic works. During her residence in Lucca from 1805-1809 as Princess of Piombino, Elisa Bonaparte is known to have visited the villa and admired the neoclassical frescos of the Lucchese painter Stefano Tofanelli.