An Italian micromosaic circular table top, Rome, first quarter 19th century, possibly by Michelangelo Barberi (1787-1867)

Beaussant Lefevre, Paris, 5 June 2019, lot 134.

M. Alfieri, in D. Petochi, I mosaici minuti romani, Sesto Fiorentino, 1981, p. 147.

Bringing together intricate micromosaics of Roman vistas, this table is a showpiece of craftsmanship to a souvenir model that was popular among Grand Tourists. This example is rare in its inclusion of twelve individual vistas, since most other tables of this form include fewer.

Micromosaics were a bravura display of craftsmanship that were as impressive in the eighteenth and nineteenth century as they are today – while the art of ancient mosaics was well-known, Italian workshops working in the post-Baroque period brought the craft to new heights by using miniscule tesserae stones arranged with careful precision. This art became highly popular among international travellers completing their Grand Tour to see the ancient sights of Italy. For this reason, Italian monuments often featured in micromosaics: decorative, generally only produced in Rome itself and almost indestructible, they were a perfect memento to bring home after one’s travels. Due to their weight and the expense of the hours required to produce micromosaics, smaller items like jewellery and snuff boxes were more common, and large-scale pieces like this table-top were rare and highly prized. Their high status has been reflected in the fact that numerous avid collectors have bought comparable table tops featuring Roman views, including the great Arthur Gilbert, who was the inventor of the term ‘micromosaic’ and owned not one, but two during the course of his collecting life.

Numerous tables are documented that feature a similar geometric arrangement of Roman scenes around a central medallion, frequently incorporating a three-dimensional Greek key as included in the present example. These scenes are based on a 1795 volume of prints depicting Roman scenes by Domenico Pronti called Nuova Raccolta di 100 vedutine antiche della città di Roma e sue vicinanze incise a bulino (‘A New Collection of 100 Burin-Etched Ancient Vistas of the City of Rome and its Environs’). These engravings, and the micromosaics that follow them, omit certain later additions to these sites to give a more authentically ‘classical’ vista: for example, the seventeenth-century bell-towers added to the Pantheon are not visible, and the micromosaicists do not amend the views of the Colosseum to include the early-nineteenth-century restorations that post-date the prints. In addition to this, the micromosaicists also had use some artistic flair in suffusing these black-and-white prints with colour, and the sense of the serenity that they evoke relies heavily on the gentle gradation of the open Italian sky, clearly at ‘rosy-fingered dawn’. In addition, some micromosaicists opt to populate their scenes with additional human figures not found in the engravings, as in several of the comparable table tops given below. A prominent maker of tables of these kind was Michelangelo Barberi, whose name is associated with the notably innovative and ambitious examples of the form, such as the table called ‘The Beautiful Sky of Italy’, now in the Hermitage (Эпр-3500), but who will also have made more conventional tables to more common templates in his workshop.

Similar table-tops with radial arrangements of trapezoidal scenes generally differ from one another in the number of scenes they include and in the decorative choices made for the central tondo’s subject and the borders. Those that do not include St Peter’s Basilica in the central panel usually opt for another typically Roman decorative motif, usually the Doves of Pliny or a detail of Rubens’ Romulus and Remus, now in the Pinacoteca Capitolina (inv. PC 67)

The closest comparable example is a well-known table top on public display in the Victoria & Albert Museum as part of the collection of the late Arthur and Rosalinde Gilbert. This table (accession number LOAN:GILBERT.896:1, 2-2008) is the only other table that includes twelve Roman scenes like the present example, and also similarly features St Peter’s Basilica in the central panel. The only differences are that the views are featured in a difference sequence, and that the micromosaicist of the present lot has chosen a lighter, fresher colour palette than the somewhat more sombre Gilbert collection example. Sir Arthur Gilbert also had another similar example of a tabletop with views of Rome, which is unique among our comparable examples not only for including ten vistas, but also for its oak-leaf border (A. C. Sherman, The Gilbert Mosaic Collection, New Haven, 1971, cat. I, p.14).

Several other examples of tabletops tend to only include eight vistas. They include examples in the Savelli collection, inv. Ve. R. s. 09/339 (featuring vistas of Rome, a Greek key border and St Peter’s Basilica) and in the RISD Museum, acc. no. 1990.060 (featuring vistas of Rome, a Greek key border and St Peter’s Basilica).

Examples at auction also only featuring eight vistas include one from the collection of Gianni Versace, sold Sotheby’s New York, 21 May 2005, lot 436 for $60,000 (featuring vistas of Rome, a Greek key border and St Peter’s Basilica), one offered at Sotheby’s London, 10 June 1998, lot 126 (featuring vistas of Rome, a Greek key border and St Peter’s Basilica) and one that sold at Christie’s New York, 18 April 2013, lot 116 for $231,750 (featuring vistas of various Italian cities, and Romulus and Remus).

The later stands for these tables vary considerably in style – the present table top rests on an elegant stand in the Louis XVI style by the great nineteenth-century historicist furniture maker Paul Sormani, who possibly received a commission to accommodate this extraordinary top.