Attributed to J. Darmanin & Sons

Jessica Muscat, The Darmanin Artists, Decorative Marble Production for the British Empire, 2021, page 124 (ill.).

The family firm of J. Darmanin & Sons was the most prominent Maltese workshop producing objects in inlaid marbles, particularly in the second half of the 19^th century. Their output was of high quality and often 'Monumental and Mosaic Slabs and other Ornamental Work' and included table tops often with a armorials and rarer smaller objects. The Carthaginian devices on the present lot feature on other pieces by them and refers to the Maltese Punic Wars past.

Darmanin's work was chiefly for export and for British tourists who stopped at Valletta while on the Levantine Grand Tour. Lady Montefiore recorded her visit to their marble works in her journal published in 1885 '[they] produce items that appeared to be imitation of Florentine mosaics'. The used marbles and semi-precious stones imported from Messina, Sicily and the Aegean and included lapis lazuli, verde antico and onyx. A number of Darmanin's ambitious inlaid tables were shown at international exhibitions in London and Paris between 1851 and 1886, including the Great Exhibition, a table which is now in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace was awarded a prize medal there (RCIN 2631).