PROPERTY FROM THE ROSALINDE AND ARTHUR GILBERT COLLECTION
Auction Closed
December 4, 11:48 AM GMT
Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection
AN ITALIAN GILT-BRONZE MOUNTED EBONY TABLE CLOCK INSET WITH FLORENTINE PIETRE DURE PANELS, MID-19TH CENTURY
8½-inch Louis XV-style cartouche enamel dial, the 18th century-style bell striking movement with verge escapement, rear-adjusted regulation and star-cut outside count wheel, the case surmounted by a patinated and gilt-bronze group of two fighting dogs on a stepped cresting above finely inlaid panels of polychrome marble depicting birds, insects and fruit on a black ground, all within stylised foliate gilt frames combined with masks, the sides inset with similar panels, the plith on boars-head feet
111cm. 43¼in. high, 52cm 21½ in. wide, 25cm. 10in. deep
Sotheby's London, 3 March 1995, lot 192
Gilbert Collection, Permanent Display, Somerset House, London, 2000-2007.
A. M. Massinelli, with contributions by Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel, Hardstones: The Gilbert Collection, London, 2000, cat. no.14, pp. 64-5.
The mounts of this impressive clock take inspiration from the work of Benedetto San Giovanni (d. 1853). The bronze boar feet are almost identical to those found on a revolving table by Palmer & Co. after a model by San Giovanni (illustrated in The Crystal Palace Exhibition Illustrated Catalogue, 1851, p. 97). Trained in Italy and settled in London since 1827, San Giovanni had submitted one work in the 1851 exhibition, a bronze sculpture depicting a group of dogs attacking a stag.
