An Italian specimen marble table top, Naples, late 18th century

A rare object in several respects, this tabletop is not only an early example of the use of inlaid volcanic specimens, but also incorporates a pietre dure scene of Naples that is a rare sight in the eighteenth century.

Eighteenth-century visitors, historians and geologists alike were fascinated by the smouldering, active Mount Vesuvius that towered over Naples, and this interest only increased after major excavations in the 1760s uncovered an entire city that had been preserved under its volcanic ash, the now-famous Pompeii. With the numbers of Grand Tourists in Italy only increasing, the Neapolitans developed a healthy market for items made out of volcanic specimens and lava to be taken home as mementoes – by 1805, this sector was well-developed enough that Peter Beckford would describe the most traded goods in Naples as “silk stockings, soap, tortoise-shell boxes, lava, fiddle-strings and diavolonies”.¹ However, this table is from a much earlier period when this type of item was considerably rarer, sold by only a handful of merchants and often associated with the best dealer of them all, Tomasso Valenziani (1725–1780). Though Valenziani was employed as a restorer at the Museo Portici, he had a strong reputation for the volcanic specimens he sold alongside his job, with The British Critic describing the Valenziani family business as “one of the principal vendors of these articles” in 1795.² The vast Valenziani collection of lava samples included 659 varieties, allowing them to create carved galanterie-style objects and boxed sets of specimen including one gifted to Tsar Peter the Great on his visit to Naples.³ Valenziani also advertised that:

“formo Tavole di variale mostre, e di bei contorni, o quadrati, o tondi, od ovali, o a mostacciuolo, di qualiasi disegno, e di qual misura si vogliano”⁴

[“I make Tables of various types, and with beautiful [inlaid] shapes, be they square, circular, oval or lozenge-form, made to any design and size you could wish for”]

A few important Neapolitan tables with similarly handled volcanic speciments are known. Three, currently in Madrid's Museo Nacioal de Ciencias Naturales (15823-15825), are documented in a 1759 invoice and belonged to Charles III of Spain.⁵ A few years later in 1764, the 9^th Earl of Exeter acquired two tables of this date, of which he donated one to the British Museum (1764,0928.1) and the other is at Burghley House.⁶ These tables are mentioned with admiration in a 1797 guide to Burghley by J. Horn, who writes of “two beautiful large slabs, composed of the lava, highly polished, which flowed from an eruption of Mount Vesuvius”.⁷ These two examples, like the present lot, make highly decorative use of interlocking borders to add variety and interest, in contrast to the more standard treatment of uniform squares in similar specimen tabletops of the period. There are some other examples of tables made from volcanic specimens, including one in Petworth,⁸ and an example from the Giovanni Pratesi collection that sold at Sotheby’s London on 22 March 2023 as lot 156 for €330,200, but they remain rare sightings.

The scene of Naples and Vesuvius in pietre dure on this table is also unexpected for the era, since these scenes were far more popular later on during the nineteenth century, such as the example in the Palazzo Reale in Naples (inv. 176/80).⁹

¹ quoted in S. S. Jervis and D. Dodd, Roman Splendour English Arcadia, London, 2015, p.27.

² The British Critic: A New Review, London, vol VI (1795), p.333. Available at : <https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.aa0001508340?urlappend=%3Bseq=367%3Bownerid=13510798903699228-373> [accessed 7 August 2025]. By this point, Valenziani’s son Matteo was in charge of the firm.

³ M. Tettamanti, Oggetti vulcanici a Napoli nel Settecento, 2021, pp.7-8

⁴ quoted in ibid., p.10.

⁵ A. González-Palacios, Las Colecciones Reales Españolas de mosaicos y piedras duras, Madrid, 2001, pp.272-275.

⁶ G. Jackson-Stops (ed), The Treasure Houses of Britain, New Haven, 1985, p.303, cat.227.

⁷ Quoted in S. S. Jervis, ‘Furniture in Eighteenth-Century Country House Guides’, Furniture History, 2006, p.96.

⁸ S. S. Jervis and D. Dodd, op. cit., p.27.

⁹ S. Cassani (ed), Civiltà dell’Ottocento: le arti figurative, Naples, 1997, pp.180-1.