An Italian carved giltwood console, Rome, circa 1730

By repute, Accoramboni family, Rome;

Virginia Pepoli, widow of the Marchese Filippo Maria Accoramboni, who later married into the Poggioli family.

AA.VV. (exhibition catalogue) Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, Philadelphia, 2000, p.169.

A. Gonzàlez-Palacios, Arredi e ornamenti alla corte di Roma, Milan, 2004, p. 165-168.

C. E. Rava, La sedia, Milan, 1964.

Broggi-Morandi-Poletti, Sedie, poltrone, divani, Novara, 1997.

A. G. Palacios, Il mobile a Roma. Il Settecento, 2025 (upcoming).

RELATED LITERATURE

A. Gonzalez-Palacios (ed.), Fasto romano. Dipinti, sculture, arredi dai Palazzi di Roma, Rome, 1991, p.15.

E. Colle, Il mobili di Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1997, p. 104.

G. Lizzani, Il mobile romano, Novara, 1997, p.69.

G. Lizzani, Il mobile romano, Milan, 1970, photography of the cove ; p.XXVII fig XLVII et p.105 fig. 180.

Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 16 March - 28 May 2000.

At a stylistic crossroads, this extraordinary console table exudes the full Baroque exuberance that Roman interiors had become famous for, notwithstanding a movement in the city towards a lightness of structure and decoration that characterised the Rococo. It was certainly produced in the same exceptional workshop as three other very similar consoles which are now in collections that are open to the public (Getty Museum, Palazzo Corsini, Grimsthorpe Castle).

The table has a complex design with a certain fragmentation of ornamental motifs – from lambrequins to masks, from bold c-scrolls to female heads carved in the round and stylised strapwork, all elements are carefully designed and arranged, certainly requiring the hand of a talented architect in its conception, and which would be successfully incorporated into the overall Gesamtkunstwerk of a magnificent palazzo. This table would have been made for a specific interior of a grand Roman palazzo and, by repute, this table was in the collections of the Accoramboni family, which had as its leading figure at the time,Cardinal Giuseppe Accoramboni (1672-1747).

Alongside the architect, the production of this console would also have involved a carpenter responsible for its structure, a carver (or intagliatore), a sculptor for the more expressive detailing and an accomplished gilder. Finally, a marmoraro would have supplied the rich Africano marble slab. The same team produced the three other very similar consoles – one in the Palazzo Corsini, Rome, another in the Getty Museum, Los Angeles and finally one at Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire.

What distinguishes this group of consoles in the context of contemporary production at the time, are the unusual stretchers with winged heads and the protruding knees, which also have female heads carved in the round to create a strong and idiosyncratic sculptural effect. The three comparable examples are slightly more elaborate than the present lot, with feet that incorporate open-mouthed masks and double heads on the stretcher and front legs. Our console table, less elaborate but with a more balanced overall effect, has a wonderful book-matched Africano marble top, which would certainly have been recognised as a highly prized marble top for any console.

This stylistic affinity between the four tables and a comparable group of smaller consoles at Palazzo Marino, Milan allowed for the identification of an autograph production which was studied by González-Palacios (“Di Tavoli e di Carrozze”, in Arredi e Ornamenti, 2004), who, despite not being able to identify the exact bottega or craftsman in charge, suggests a connection with intagliatori working in the second and third decade of the 18^th century for the Portuguese ambassadorial emissaries who had commissioned a number of highly sculptural carriages for King John V, aptly known as “The Magnificent”. A few names of intagliatori who seem to have worked in this style, such as Tomasso Corsini and Francesco Tibaldi, have been revealed by archival research in the past few years.