Attributed to Giacomo Raffaelli Italian, 1753-1836 An important and rare Roman micromosaic table top Italy, circa 1805-25

fitted on a later Napoléon III carved gilt wood base

Carlo Bertelli et al., Mosaics, Gallery Books, New York, 1988
Edgar Peters Bowron and Joseph J. Rishel, Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalog, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pa., 2000
Brunk Auctions, Asheville, North Carolina, 6 September 2003
E.M. Efimova, West European Mosaics of the 13th-19th Centuries in the Collection of the Hermitage, Sovietsky Khudozhnik, Leningrad, 1968
Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel, Micromosaics: The Gilbert Collection, Philip Wilson, London, 2000.

Giltwood base with rubbing to gilding. Gilt bronze band with rubbing and losses to gilding and both long sides with screws missing and banding loose. Black marble outer surround with some hairline cracks and one corner restored with infill. Micromosaic in very good condition with only some very minor and occasional pieces of infill. Some light surface scratches.
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This rare micromosaic tabletop attributed to Giacomo Raffaelli (1753-1836) corresponds with two other important examples; all are approximately the same size, and the designs of all three consist of a white ground with scrolling rinceaux and butterflies, a contrasting geometric border and a central oval reserve with the Capitoline Doves. The first comparative example is one of a pair of tabletops (the other with a reserve of ducks) executed circa 1783 by Pompeo Savini to a design by Johann Wenzel Peter, for King Stanislaw II of Poland (Royal Lazinski Museum, Warsaw). Raffaelli unquestionably knew about these tables; he had a long history with StanislawII, and was appointed King’s Counsellor for the arts in 1787; he was also an intimate friend of Peter, who regularly supplied him with cartoons, produced in multiple versions for Peter’s various mosaicist clients. The second comparative example of this mosaic is found on a tabletop by Antonio Mora dated c. 1791 in the Hermitage Museum. Like the previous tabletop, this is one of a pair depicting doves and ducks. The Mora tables were gifts to Catherine the Great from Countess Skvaronskaya (later Countess Litta), when her husband  was Russian ambassador to Naples (Efimova, 1968, no’s. 46,47).

The popularity of Raffaelli’s mosaics with the Russian Imperial family is evidenced by at least thirteen of his works at the Hermitage dating from the late eighteenth century through the 1820's. Among them are three rectangular tabletops (all the same size as the present mosaic): one features a central mosaic reserve of Cupid in a chariot pulled by deer within a field of scrolling leaves, butterflies, and a meander border; this was acquired in 1846 during the reign of Nicholas I. A pair of consoles dated 1826, given to Nicholas I in 1838 by Prince Lieven, Russian Ambassador to the British Court, have tops of marble with hardstone inlay and three mosaic reserves depicting Cupids and trophies of the arts. These are from Milan, where Raffaelli established his workshop in 1804 at the request of the Napoleonic Court; they must be either the same tables, or duplicates, of matching consoles  mentioned in a list of Raffaelli’s works exhibited at Milan’s lycée de Brera in 1814 (Efimova, 1968, no’s. 50, 57, 60; Alfieri in Gabriel, 2000, pp. 270-271). In 2003, a related mosaic tabletop on a later base attributed to Raffaelli was deaccessioned from the Hickory Museum of Art (North Carolina) and sold for a hammer price of $400,000 (Brunk Auctions, Asheville, 6 September, 2003, lot 260).

It is likely that both Savini and Mora were pupils of Raffaelli. Savini created a circular mosaic tabletop in 1788 for King Stanislaus matching the earlier pair; Mora’s only known mosaics are the Hermitage consoles (Efimova notes that several works by Raffaelli’s students are in the Hermitage; Efimova, 1968, p. 10). Their tables all display the tiny cut tesserae and stylized execution first used by Raffaelli in his 1775 exhibition. The Doves of the present table, made of multi-shaped tesserae, show Raffaelli’s evolution to greater naturalism, which is found in his pictures of 1817, Grotto in Tivoli and Temple of Sibyl at Tivoli (Hermitage). At the same time his trademark techniques are evident: meticulous execution, horizontal rows of background tesserae, and the outlining of figures with a single row of tesserae. Raffaelli was the most successful mosaicist of his generation; the vast number of works he produced are dispersed throughout the world but relatively few have been traced.

Sotheby's is grateful to Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel for her extensive research and compilation on this extraordinary and rare micromosaic table.

The present lot will be published in 'Micromosaics: Private Collections' by Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel to be published in 2016.