Italian, Rome, 17th Century

Oval Marble Dish

Auction Closed

February 2, 05:19 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property from a Swiss Private Collection

Italian, Rome, 17th Century

Oval Marble Dish

set in a contemporary serrated gilt-copper border and the reverse with fragments of two old collection labels marked with the handwritten numbers 11752 and 6212

gilt-copper and black marble

length: 11 ⅝ in.; 29.5 cm.

Galleria W. Apolloni, Rome, 1995.

The present dish is comprised of one carved black marble plaque. This material could very possibly be lumachella plumbea, a rare stone cited in Francesco Belli's 1892 book Catalogo della collezione di pietre usate dagli antichi per sotruire ed adornare le loro fabbriche dell'avv. Francesco Belli ora posseduta dal conte. He describes it there as having a lead-gray background with striations of gray and white shells. Samples of this stone were found during the excavations of Via Appia, but very few examples are still extant today.