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alb3606217 Pair of five-light candelabra. Culture: Italian, Rome. Dimensions: Overall (each): 27 × 15 15/16 in. (68.6 × 40.5 cm). Maker: Luigi Valadier (Italian, Rome 1726-1785 Rome); Possibly in collaboration with Lorenzo Cardelli. Date: 1774.After the death of his father in 1763, Prince Marcantonio Borghese (1730-1800) inherited a great fortune that included the finest private art collection in the Eternal City.[1] His subsequent role as one of the most important collector-patrons of the Neoclassical period -rivaling, in his own family, Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1576-1633) in the Early Baroque era - has not received the attention that it deserves.[2] The creator of this pair of candelabra, Luigi Valadier (1726-1785), became the principal goldsmith for Prince Marcantonio, who was close to him in age, thus extending the ties that the artisan's father, the goldsmith Andrea Valadier (d. 1757), had established to the Borghese court decades earlier.[3]The superior design and precise, finely detailed craftsmanship of the present five-light candelabra place them among the most distinguished art objects created in the second half of the eighteenth century, an exciting period of Roman creativity influenced by the theories of Johann Joachim Winckelmann and the progressive inventions of Giovanni Battista Piranesi.[4] Thanks to the archival research of Alvar González-Palacios, we know a great deal about the circumstances of their manufacture. They were made for the suite of public rooms in the Palazzo Borghese in Rome that the architect Antonio Asprucci was redecorating for Prince Marcantonio.[5] They were to be displayed on two small tables - also executed in the color scheme of deep red porphyry and gilded bronze - in the Galleriola dei Cesari (so called because sixteen ancient porphyry busts of Roman emperors were on view there in niches).[6] Porphyry has been associated since Roman times with personages "born in the purple"; it is also a difficult stone to work. González-Palacios suggests that Lorenzo Cardelli, a stone carver who collaborated with Valadier on several mantelpieces of porphyry and marble the following year, made the porphyry elements for these candelabra.[7]Rising from each candelabrum's porphyry drum decorated with gilded bronze bucrania and swags in the classical style, the porphyry shaft curves up in the form of a baluster to become a small bowl at the top, decorated with gilded lions' heads and three whimsical Roman theatrical masks, from which sprout clusters of gilded bronze leaves and long branches that terminate in sockets for candles. Standing on the drum and encircling the baluster are three bronze female figures that appear to support the basin but in fact are purely decorative. Valadier's invoice for works he executed for the palazzo Borghese (dated September 6, 1774) identifies the figures as a Venus, an Amazon, and a Muse and says they were based on clsasical Roman statues.[8] The Venus, shown turned toward the shaft - the better to display her beautiful posterior - was based on an ancient marble then at the Villa Farnesina in Rome and now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. Often reproduced, in various media, it was a popular souvenir with foreign visitors on the grand tour. The figure Valadier describes as a Muse recalls the huntress Diana in the collection of the Palazzo Verospi in Rome. The prototype of the Amazon is a marble sculpture today in the Musei Vaticani. Valadier reproduced it in 1780 as a large bronze statue (now at the Château de Malmaison, outside Paris).[9]Valadier's idea of grouping three caryatid figures around the shaft of his candelabra may have originated with Piranesi, who engraved a celebrated ancient statue of the three Graces that was at the time on display in the Villa Borghese.[10] Nevertheless, both the forward-looking design and the daring combination of decorative elements with such divergent roots show that Valadier was well ahead of most contemporary makers of decorative objects. He had an important influence on English artists and metalwork, as a comparison of the upper part of his candelabra with English goldsmiths' work of the 1810s to the 1840s shows. Future research may reveal whether a similar pair of candelabra entered an influential English collection during the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, or whether an English artisan in Italy bought drawings of the candelabra home to the British Isles during those years.[11] Parallels with the oeuvre of Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (1780-1854) are especially striking. In 1811 his British firm made for the Prince Regent a pair of candelabra with simpler ornaments and with sculptural details after English plasters that nevertheless reflect the design of the Metropolitan's candelabra.[12][Wolfram Koeppe 2008][1] González-Palacios 1995b, p. 97[2] Ibid.[3] Bulgari 1958-59, vol. 2, pp. 494, 496, 499.[4] See Koeppe in Kisluk-Grosheide, Koeppe, and Rieder 2006, p. 168, no. 70; Lawrence 2007.[5] On the redecoration of the suite of rooms on the ground floor of the palace, see Hibbard 1962.[6] On the tables, see González-Palacios in González-Palacios 1996, pp. 127-28, no. 26, pl. X.[7] González-Palacios 1995b, p. 101.[8] Alvar González-Palacios identified this document in the Archivio Segredo Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, fol. 5298 (no. 3169). It reads, in part, "due Candelabrij di profido tutti guarniti con dell'ornati e figure di metallo dorato . La Venere delle belle chiappe, L'Amazone et una Musa."[9] Note by James David Draper in the files of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum. Compare also the related Statue of a Wounded Amazon, an ancient Roman marble in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum (32.11.4).[10] Fuhring 1989, vol. 1, p. 360, no. 557, fig. 27; Lawrence 2007.[11] Valadier created a pair of candelabra that are very similar to the present examples, today at Pavlovsk Palace, near Saint Petersburg. González-Palacios suggests they may have been commissioned by Grand Duke Paul of Russia and his wife Maria Feodorovna; see González-Palacios 1995b, p. 102, n. 8; Kuchumov 1974, pl. 184.[12] This hitherto unobserved influence demands a separate study. The following sources may cast some light on the question: Carlton House 1991, p. 178, no. 151; Christie's, Monaco, July 1, 1995, sale cat., lot 30 (a similar pair). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3659517 The Last Kiss of Romeo and Juliet. Artist: After a composition by Francesco Hayez (Italian, Venice 1791-1882 Milan). Culture: Italian. Dimensions: Overall (confirmed): 5 × 5/16 × 3 5/8 in. (12.7 × 0.7 × 9.2 cm);Framed (with bail, confirmed): 6 1/2 × 4 1/2 in. (16.5 × 11.5 cm). Maker: Giovanni Beltrami (Italian, Cremona 1770 or 1777-1854 Cremona). Date: crystal 1824, frame possibly contemporary.The front of the oval rock crystal is flat with a wide, outward sloping beveled edge. Into the flat back Giovanni Beltrami engraved a miniature version of Francesco Hayez's painting, The Last Kiss of Juliet and Romeo (Milan, Brera). The image and its accompanying inscription are carved in reverse so that they are correctly oriented when the crystal is viewed from the front. Beltrami executed his reproduction exclusively in matte engraving. Its silvery translucence makes The Last Kiss appear to be suspended both within and beyond the transparent confines of the highly polished stone - an illusion underscored by the slight cropping of the scene's corners. The crystal's beveled cut and lucent clarity act like a lens to enlarge the engraved details and impart startling three-dimensionality to the figures of Juliet and Romeo. The gemstone was commissioned by Count Giovanni Battista Sommariva (1760-1826).Born in Lodi of obscure parentage, the barrister, financier, and art collector, Giovanni Battista Sommariva, rose to prominence as a supporter of France during Napoleon's conquest of Italy. At the height of his influence from 1800 to 1802 Sommariva was the de facto ruler of Milan. After Napoleon replaced him, Sommariva retired from politics and devoted his attention to speculative finance. He promoted his European prestige by dedicating his increasingly grand fortune to collecting works of art that he displayed in his principal residences in Paris and in Tremezzo (Villa Carlotta, formerly Sommariva, on Lake Como). Sommariva patronized the greatest sculptors and painters of his day, among them Canova, Thorvaldsen, Girodet, Prud'hon, and Hayez. Until his death in 1826, his private holdings were must-stop destinations for royalty, nobility and cognoscenti on the continental Grand Tour.Sommariva's emphasis on contemporary art endowed his collection with its unique distinction and historic importance. His preference for Italian and French works mirrors the international taste that is characteristic of the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic eras. His equal enthusiasm for classical and troubadour subjects, such as The Last Kiss of Juliet and Romeo, reflects the transition from Neoclassicism to Romanticism. The Renaissance tale of the doomed lovers of Verona, later immortalized by Shakespeare, was undergoing a revival. Sommariva's special interest in this subject is indicated by the fact that sometime between 1822 and 1825 he acquired one of the seven luxury editions of Luigi da Porto's Novella di Giulietta et Romeo that were illuminated by Giambattista Gigola (1767-1841). These years bracket his acquisition of Hayez's The Last Kiss and the completion of the painting's reproduction in crystal.In spectacular fashion, Sommariva had his most important sculptures and paintings reproduced as cameos and intaglios. Only a man possessing tremendous wealth and a bent for unbridled self-promotion could have conceived of a project that directly linked his collection with the glyptic art form associated with the ancient Caesars, Renaissance princes, and contemporary royalty. By commissioning reproductions in precious, enduring gemstones Sommariva strove to secure the fame and integrity of his collection for posterity. Like The Last Kiss, each gem was inscribed with the artist's and the carver's names, the gem's date, and "Sommariva owns this." The phrase equally applies to the original work and to its record in precious stone. The Sommariva family name combined with a declaration of ownership in the present tense signaled the collection's dynastic intent.For his costly, ambitious project Sommariva primarily engaged members of the distinguished school of gem engravers who were located around Milan. Giovanni Beltrami, a native and resident of Cremona, who had established his fame as one of the greatest gem carvers in Europe with his work for the Bonapartes, was singled out with the demanding task of creating intaglios of Sommariva's paintings. During his association with Sommariva between 1811 and 1824, Beltrami is estimated to have produced about forty such gems of which only a handful are known today. Based on the plaster and glass reproductions of the gems that Sommariva commissioned for wide distribution, the Last Kiss was by far the largest and one of the most complex intaglios of any in his collection.The 1823 exhibition of Francesco Hayez's early work, The Last Kiss of Juliet and Romeo, at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan, heralded the dawn of the Romantic era in Italy. The painting, which was lauded for its meticulous naturalism and criticized for its overt depiction of mutual passion, hung as a centerpiece in the Villa Sommariva. The importance and innovative character of Beltrami's intaglio reflects the picture's status. Beltrami was known for his bravura execution of crowded figure groups on relatively small gems. With The Last Kiss, he took on the challenge of engraving a very large stone with two foreground figures set in a complex spatial interior. Engraving the scene's multi-layered perspective and the couple's full-bodied embrace demanded absolute precision. In hard transparent stone, with miniscule grinding strokes and hairsbreadth distinctions between depths of relief, Beltrami created the pictorial illusions of three-dimensional form, distance, and illumination. He accurately rendered the painting's smallest details, magisterially evoked its subtle play of shifting light, and memorably captured the young lovers' physical and emotional passion. Beltrami's contemporaries praised The Last Kiss as one of the engraver's masterpieces. The format, medium, scale, and pictorial ambition of The Last Kiss directly relate it to the Renaissance tradition of engraved crystal plaquettes that are represented at the Met by works such as Giovanni Bernardi's Battle of Tunis of c. 1544 (17.190.540). Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3675298 Francesco I de' Medici (1541-1587), Grand Duke of Tuscany. Artist: After a model by Giambologna (Netherlandish, Douai 1529-1608 Florence). Culture: Italian, Florence. Dimensions: Overall (confirmed): H. 30 3/8 x W. 24 1/2 x D. 13 11/16 in. (77.2 x 62.2 x 34.7 cm). Founder: Probably cast by Pietro Tacca (Italian, Carrara 1577-1640 Florence). Date: modeled 1585-87, cast ca. 1611.This imposing portrait of Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici dates between 1585, when he received the Order of the Golden Fleece (the badge dangles prominently from a chain around his neck) and 1587, when he died. The model for the bronze clearly owes its character to the premier sculptor of the Medici family, Giambologna. Yet its facture is consistent with sculptures that Giambologna produced later in his career, specifically the work characteristic of his principal studio assistant, Pietro Tacca. Documents bear out the supposition that this sculpture is a later interpretation by Tacca of the older master's concept. Giambologna's most famous Medici portrait -- an equestrian monument to Francesco's father, Cosimo I, initiated in 1577 and installed in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, in 1587 -- became the iconic image of the Florentine rulers and set standards across Europe.[1] When Queen Marie de Médicis (née Maria de' Medici) decided to commission an equestrian monument to her husband, King Henry IV of France, she relied on her family back in Italy to press the busy Giambologna to execute that monument.[2] Following the sculptor's death in 1608, the commission passed to Pietro Tacca. The bronze horse and rider were shipped from Florence to Paris in 1611, together with a bust. On October 7, 1614, Matteo Bartolini, the Tuscan emissary in Paris, wrote to his masters that the queen was sending 300 scudi to Tacca in recompense for the bust in bronze of her father, Francesco I. [3] When the Museum's bust appeared on the market in 1983, it was recognized as the long-lost possession of Marie de Médicis.Its debt to models by Giambologna and its execution by Tacca are evident. What may be Giambologna's earliest bronze bust of Cosimo I (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) is the direct prototype for Francesco I.[4] The image of the son follows that of the father: identical Renaissance armor -- with scalloped pauldrons and a rope motif centered across the breastplate -- is in both cases crossed by a sword sash over the right shoulder, topped by the ceremonial chain. The date of the bust of Cosimo is uncertain. It was probably cast after 1553, when the artist moved to Florence. Another scholar suggests, however, that it was made at the time of Cosimo's death, in 1574, and if so, the sculptor may have deliberately paired the busts of Cosimo and Francesco.[5] The parentage of the New York bust is clear, and there are also echoes in it of other Giambologna busts of Francesco, notably an example in marble over the door of the former Teatro Mediceo in Florence.[6] Similarly clad in contemporary armor, though wearing a sash over the left shoulder, that one lacks the badge of the Golden Fleece and thus predates the Museum's bronze; however, the fairly fleshy face and full beard indicate that the two are not far apart in date. Both busts accord with painted portraits, such as that by an anonymous artist in the circle of Scipione Pulzone in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence. [7] Earlier canvases, such as Tommaso d'Antonio Manzuoli's portrait of 1560 (Museo Civico, Prato), and marbles, such as Giovanni Bandini's Francesco I (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), with thinner face and beard, show how the duke's physiognomy changed over time; the full sequence of images indicates that the Museum's bronze bust represents the duke toward the end of his life.[8]Crisp chasing of the surface, sharp folds in the drapery, and a translucent reddish lacquer patina are characteristic of bronzes from Giambologna and his workshop later in the sculptor's career.[9] It seems likely that Tacca, a considerable artist in his own right, interpreted Giambologna's model and produced a meticulously clean bronze for his exalted and demanding patron, the queen of France.[10] The idealized, somewhat abstract portrait of Francesco accords with the imperious image the Medici sought for themselves. Created posthumously, the bronze captures the likeness but preserves the dignity of the sitter as an iconic image of a ruler. This was a man more at home in his studiolo, poring over natural specimens or fostering such inventions as Medici porcelain, than with ruling the state from the great hall (today the Salone dei Cinquecento) of the Palazzo Vecchio. Francesco's somewhat vacant stare manages to appear commanding while divulging no secrets of the inner man's true personality.[Ian Wardropper. European Sculpture, 1400-1900, In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, no. 30, pp. 96-97.]Footnotes:[1] John Pope-Hennessy. An Introduction to Italian Sculpture. 3 vols. Vol. 3, Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture. 4th ed. London, 1996, pp. 335 - 36, 492 - 93, pl. 316. [2] See Geneviève Bresc-Bautier in Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from the Renaissance to Revolution. Exh cat. edited by Geneviève Bresc-Bautier and Guilhem Scherf, with James David Draper, and with contributions by Jane Bassett et al. Musée du Louvre, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; 2008-9. Paris, 2009. [French ed., Bronzes français 2008.], pp. 164 - 69, nos. 40, 41, for a recent account of the commission.[3] Archivio di Stato, Florence, Carteggio Mediceo, no. 4629 (first published in Giovanni [Johann Wilhelm] Gaye. Carteggio inedito d'artisti dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI. 3 vols. Florence, 1839-40. [Reprint ed., Turin, 1968.], vol. 3,p. 539).[4] Karla Langedijk. The Portraits of the Medici, Fifteenth-Eighteenth Centuries. 3 vols. Florence, 1981-87, vol. 1 pp. 469 - 70, no. 27,122. [5] Charles Avery. Giambologna: The Complete Sculpture. Oxford, 1987, pp. 167, 256, no. 32, pl. 172.[6] Ibid., pp. 169, 254, no. 15, pl. 175.[7] Les Trésors des Médicis, la Florence des Médicis: Une Ville et une cour d'Europe. Exh. cat. edited by Cristina Acidini Luchinat and Mario Scalini. Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Château de Blois; 1998-99. Paris, Munich, and Florence, 1999, p. 95, no. 35.[8] Elena Carrara in Masters of Florence: Glory and Genius of the Court of the Medici. Exh. cat. Pyramid, Memphis; 2004. Memphis, 2004, p. 148; Francesco Vossilla in Magnificenza alla corte dei Medici: Arte a Firenze alla fine del Cinquecento. Exh. cat. Museo degli Argenti, Palazzo Pitti, Florence; 1997-98. Milan, 1997, p. 31. no. 4.[9] Richard E. Stone (Richard E. Stone. "Organic Patinas on Small Bronzes of the Italian Renaissance." Metropolitan Museum Journal 45 (2010), pp. 107-23, p. 109) has analyzed its "magnificent organic patina of a striking color like that of a very old burgundy wine" (but he was unable to identify the resin that gives it its distinctive hue).[10] Jessica Mack-Andrick. Pietro Tacca, Hofbildhauer der Medici (1577-1640): Politische Funktion und Ikonographie des frühabsolutistischen Herrscherdenkmals unter den Grossherzögen Ferdinando I., Cosimo II. und Ferdinando II. Weimar, 2005; Pietro Tacca: Carrara, la Toscana, le grandi corti europee. Exh. cat. edited by Franca Falleti. Centro Internazionale delle Arti Plastiche, Carrara; 2007. Florence, 2007. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3626496 Drop-front secretary (Secrétaire en armoire). Culture: French, Paris. Dimensions: Overall: 57 × 43 × 16 in. (144.8 × 109.2 × 40.6 cm);Length (key): 3 5/8 in. (9.2 cm). Maker: Jean Henri Riesener (French, Gladbeck, North Rhine-Westphalia 1734-1806 Paris). Date: 1783.Jean-Henri Riesener created this splendid secretary and commode for Marie-Antoinette in 1783. They were commissioned for the queen's Grand Cabinet Intérieur at Versailles, where she kept the collection of Japanese lacquer boxes she had inherited from her mother, Empress Maria Theresa (1717 - 1780) of Austria. So that their surface decoration would harmonize with that of the boxes, choice fragments of seventeenth-century Japanese lacquer were reused as veneer for these pieces of royal furniture. The shiny black and gold lacquer and lustrous ebony form a striking background for the exceptionally beautiful gilt-bronze mounts (see detail page 102). Consisting of swags and interlaced garlands of naturalistic flowers, these jewel-like mounts incorporate the queen's initials in the frieze as well as handles shaped like rippling ribbons. Enclosed behind the fall front of the secretary, several secret drawers are hidden beneath the hinged floor of the central compartment. These small drawers, as well as a strongbox that could be locked separately, offered places to store valuables and protect personal correspondence from prying eyes. The queen undoubtedly used them, for she never believed any papers were safe at the court, according to the Austrian diplomat Florimond-Claude, comte de Mercy-Argenteau (1727 - 1794). He had reported to her mother many years earlier that the dauphine was fearful of duplicate keys and apprehensive that things would be taken from her pockets at night. (footnote 1)The history of these famous pieces of furniture is remarkably well documented. Marie-Antoinette frequently changed the decor of her private rooms, and in 1787 she had the commode and secretary sent from Versailles to her new summer palace at Saint-Cloud. Both pieces left the royal collections when they were given in lieu of payment for his services during the Revolution to Abraham Alcan, a contractor of supplies for the army of the Rhine and Moselle. During the nineteenth century, the queen's secretary and commode were part of several notable British collections. George Watson Taylor (1770 - 1841) kept them at his country house, Erlestoke Park, in Wiltshire, and later they belonged to the dukes of Hamilton. At the famous Hamilton Palace sale of 1882 the royal pieces were acquired for Mrs. William Kissam Vanderbilt (1853 - 1933 ), one of the reigning society hostesses of New York City, for her mansion on Fifth Avenue. Her daughter Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan (1877 - 1964) remembered Marie-Antoinette's lacquer secretaire and commode standing in the white drawing room, which was hung with a set of Boucher tapestries. (footnote 2)footnote 1. Mercy-Argenteau 1770 . 80 .1874, vol. 1, p. 75.footnote 2. Balsan 1952, p. 11. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3624335 Pair of firedogs (chenets). Artist: Quentin-Claude Pitoin (French, Paris ca. 1725-1777 Paris). Culture: French, Paris. Dimensions: .5) H. 16 x W. 24 1/4 x D. 7 5/8 in. (40.6 x 61.6 x 19.4 cm);.6) H. 15 1/2 x W. 24 1/4 x D. 7 5/8 in. (39.4 x 61.6 x 19.4 cm). Date: ca. 1772.Attributes of hunting embellish these highly accomplished models, which are known to have been repeated in different sizes. The small sculpture of a wild boar on the left andiron and of a reclining stag on the other surmount a rectangular base, which is further enriched with a relief panel in front showing, below the boar, dead game and, below the stag, a sleeping hound amid game. Dogs' pelts, oak and ivy branches, and a pile of additional game, all beautifully chased and finished, are also incorporated in the elaborate designs. The figure of the boar at bay is derived from a lifesize Roman marble in the Galleria degli Uffizi, in Florence. That antique sculpture was reproduced in bronze, much reduced in size, by the Florentine sculptor and bronze caster Giovanni Francesco Susini (1585-ca. 1653). One of his early seventeenth-century replicas was probably the source for the sculptural boar on the Museum's andiron. Madame du Barry appears to have been the first to own a pair of firedogs of this model. They were delivered for use in her apartment at the royal hunting castle at Fontainebleau in October 1772 by Quentin-Claude Pitoin, principal supplier of bronzes d'ameublement to the court.The Museum's andirons are believed to have been in the possession of the French statesman Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes (1719-1787), who was sent as envoy to Trier and appointed ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and Sweden, and who later served as foreign minister under Louis XVI. The moving flames of a fire on the hearth, reflected in the differently worked surfaces of the firedogs, would have brought the stag and the boar, albeit temporarily, to life. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3603350 Drop-front secretary (secrétaire à abattant or secrétaire en armoire). Culture: French, Paris. Dimensions: H. 63-1/2 x W. 32 x D. 15 in. (161.3 x 81.3 x 38.1 cm). Factory director: Under the direction of Jean Hauré (born 1739, active 1774-after 1796). Maker: Guillaume Benneman (active 1785, died 1811); and Michaud; Probably cast by Étienne-Jean Forestier (died 1768, master 1764); Pierre-Auguste Forestier; Chased by Pierre Philippe Thomire (French, Paris 1751-1843 Paris); and Bardin; and Tournay and others; Gilded by Galle. Modeler: Mounts modeled by Louis Simon Boizot (French, Paris 1743-1809 Paris); and Martin, possibly Gilles-François Martin (ca. 1713-1795). Date: 1786-87.This unusually well documented secretary--known as a secrétaire en armoire because the section below the drop front, or abattant, is fitted as a cupboard (armoire)--beautifully illustrates the collaborative nature of high-quality furniture production in eighteenth-century France. Because of strict guild regulations that enforced high standards of workmanship and stimulated a high degree of specialization, many different artists were involved in its creation. Intended for Louis XVI's study at the Château de Compiègne, a palatial hunting lodge fifty miles northeast of Paris, this piece was ordered to match an existing commode made by Gilles Joubert for Louis XV in 1770. Jean Hauré (b. 1739), a sculptor and entrepreneur des meubles to the court, supervised the work and engaged the German-born Guillaume Benneman, who had been named king's cabinetmaker in 1785, to execute the frame and the marquetry. The curvilinear latticework pattern of the marquetry was originally enriched with small gilded rosettes.The gilt-bronze mounts went through the hands of many different artists and craftsmen (listed above) during successive modeling, casting, chasing, burnishing, and mercury-gilding procedures. Jean-Pierre Lanfant supplied the original top of dark red Italian griotte marble, which has since been replaced. The detailed receipts for the work also record payments for leather to cover the writing surface and for the gilt tooling of its edges, as well as for the services of a locksmith. Although this secretary was supposed to match a nearly twenty-year-old commode, the mounts, especially the large caryatids--veritable sculptures in their own right--and the interior--veneered with mahogany--are expressions of the latest Neoclassical taste. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

alb3613574 Monumental vase. Culture: probably Italian, Florence and French, Paris. Dimensions: Overall: H. with pedestal 109 1/4 in., Wt. 1575lb. (277.5 cm, 714.4153kg); Vase: H. without pedestal 63 3/4 x Circum. at top 54 x Circum. at bottom 30 (161.9 x 137.2 x 76.2 cm); Pedestal: H. 45 1/2 x W. 37 1/2 x D. 37 1/2 in. (115.6 x 95.3 x 95.3 cm). Maker: Pedestal and mounts by Pierre Philippe Thomire (French, Paris 1751-1843 Paris). Date: lapidary work: early 19th century; pedestal and mounts: 1819.Malachite is a carbonate mineral often associated with copper ores. As explained by Jeffrey Post, it "grows in layers of tiny crystals, and its colors correlate with different crystal sizes: smaller crystals form light green bands and larger crystals make darker ones."[1] In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, most malachite came from mines in Russia owned by the noble Demidov family, who exploited hardstone quarries and metal deposits on their estates in the remote Ural Mountains. One of the great discoveries in the history of semiprecious stones occurred in the 1820s, when an enormous boulder of malachite weighing about five hundred tons was unearthed in the Urals.[2] A schistose material, malachite is extremely brittle, and only small display objects can be cut from single blocks of this rock. Large objects require a core structure, to which the malachite can be attached in thin pieces. Russian craftsmen perfected a way of utilizing the stone's natural pattern and a precision cutting technique to form a continuing or, on the round body of a vase, an "endless" ornament. This type of veneer, called "Russian mosaic," looks almost seamless.[3]The Demidovs used the showy appearance of malachite to increase their social status. They filled their palaces and decorated a whole room in one of them with the green stone, inspiring Czar Nicolas I to commission the famous Malachite Room in the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg.[4]The Metropolitan Museum's vase is modeled on one type of ancient Roman bell-shaped krater, the most famous example of which is the first-century Medici Vase, now in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. The form was much admired in the early nineteenth century.[5] Count Nikolai Demidov commissioned this monumental example for his villa at San Donato, near Florence. From a distance, the malachite veneer seems to be of the Russian mosaic type. Closer inspection reveals an uneven use of the stone that differs considerably from Russian work; moreover, large areas of the surface are composed of small malachite particles mixed with filling substance in the manner of modern terrazzo. Demidov probably had the raw malachite transported from one of his mines to Florence. There it would have been shaped and finished by local artists, who were not trained in the specialized Russian technique, and afterwards sent on to Paris to be fitted with its mounts and pedestal. In an essay on the vase by this author published in 2006, the Italian, perhaps Florentine, origin of the lapidary work was suggested for the first time.[6] Although it initiated a spirited discussion, this new attribution has not--to the author's knowledge--been questioned in a written review. The presence in this exhibition of an undisputed masterwork of Russian mosaic in malachite, the Stroganov Tazza (The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, E 6721), offers an opportunity to compare the veneer on these two closely related objects and, it is hoped, to resolve any lingering questions about their manufacture.The winged female figures in gilded bronze mounted on the body of the vase represent Fame. Their trumpets are shaped like handles--something of a paradox, since the object is far too heavy to be lifted like a loving cup. A gilded bronze garland of laurel runs under the lip mount. This evergreen plant, Laurus nobilis, had been adopted by Lorenzo de' Medici, who was also a lavish patron of the arts,[7] as an emblem of his house, together with the motto "Ita ut virtus," or "Thus is virtue"-- that is to say, virtue is evergreen. Evergreen too, is the precious stone that embellishes this vase. It seems that Coutn Demidov wished for his own family both virtue and an "evergreen" fortune. Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751-1843), who made the mounts and bronze pedestal and signed the latter, was known throughout Europe for his bronze decorations and ornamental sculpture. Before the French Revolution, he established a reputation with his beautiful mounts for Sèvres porcelain vases. In 1804 he founded a workshop that produced furniture as well as luxury bronzes.[8][Wolfram Koeppe 2008]Footnotes:[1] Jeffrey E. Post. The National Gem Collection. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. New York, 1997, pp. 132-33.[2] Natalya Guseva. "Kunsthandwerk und Manufakturen in Russland um 1800." In St. Petersburg um 1800 1990, p. 90.[3] Ibid.; see also Audrey Kennett. The Palaces of Leningrad. New York, 1973, p. 41.[4] Audrey Kennett. The Palaces of Leningrad. New York, 1973, p. 41.[5] Louis-Étienne-François Héricart de Thury. Rapport du Jury d'Admission des Produits de l'Industrie du Département de la Seine, à l'Exposition du Louvre, comprenant une notice statistique sur ces produits. [France], 1819, p. 80, no. 1; Hans Ottomeyer. "The Metamorphosis of the Neoclassical Vase." In McCormick and Ottomeyer 2004, p. 16.[6] Wolfram Koeppe in Daniëlle O. Kisluk-Grosheide, Wolfram Koeppe, and William Rieder. European Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Highlights of the Collection. New York, 2006, pp. 224-26, no. 94.[7] James Hall. Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art. Rev. ed. New York, 1979, p. 190.[8] This entry is largely based on Wolfram Koeppe in Daniëlle O. Kisluk-Grosheide, Wolfram Koeppe, and William Rieder. European Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Highlights of the Collection. New York, 2006, pp. 224-26, no. 94. As always, I am grateful to Marina Nudel, Senior Research Associate, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum, for her advice. Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.