The Vision of Aso O. Tavitian | The Townhouse

The Vision of Aso O. Tavitian | The Townhouse

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1352. A Neapolitan Baroque Brass-Inlaid Tortoiseshell and Gold Piqué Work Dressing Set, Mid-18th Century.

A Neapolitan Baroque Brass-Inlaid Tortoiseshell and Gold Piqué Work Dressing Set, Mid-18th Century

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

consisting of two hinged rectangular boxes, two circular lidded boxes, a small tray and shaving brush


height of circular boxes 3 ½ in.; diameter 4 ¼ in.

9 cm; 11 cm

height the rectangular boxes 3 in.; width 5 ½ in; depth 3 ½

7 ½ in.; 13.5 cm; 9 cm

width of the tray 8 ½ in.

21 cm

Mallett, New York;

From whom acquired by Aso O. Tavitian, 26 March 2009.

The technique referred to as piqué developed in Naples in the latter half of the seventeenth century and entailed specialist tortoiseshell workers known as tartarugari heating and moulding turtle shells into specific shapes of boxes, trays and other small objects that were then inlaid with gold, brass and mother of pearl plaques or alternatively pricked or scored and then filled with molten gold or silver. The forms were inspired by contemporary works produced in silver or ceramics, including wares from the Capodimonte porcelain factory founded in 1743. The decoration tended to parallel trends in French design, beginning with the Louis XIV arabesque style associated with the draughtsman Jean Bérain and later adopting the lighter and more fluid scrollwork, pastoral scenes and chinoiserie motifs typical of the goût pittoresque of the Régence and Rococo periods.


Production of piqué work reached its apogee with the arrival of the Bourbon monarchy in 1734, providing a boost to the local luxury trades with the establishment of a new court. Such works became highly sought after as Grand Tour souvenirs and were acquired by visitors such as Horace Walpole, Robert Adam and Lady Anna Miller, who observed on a 1771 visit to Naples that 'this city is famous for a manufacture of tortoiseshell, which they inlay curiously with gold, and are very ingenious at representing any object you choose.' Many pieces entered royal collections and princely kunstkammern and were later actively collected by nineteenth-century antiquarians and connoisseurs, especially the Rothschilds. The most successful named workshops were those of Giuseppe and Gennaro Sarao, Antonio de Laurenzii, Nicola De Turris, and Giovanni and Tomaso Tagliaferro.


A few larger dressing sets have survived and include an example formerly in the collection of the Elector of Bavaria Karl Theodor now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich; another in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick; and a further set from the Henry Nyburg collection sold Sotheby's London, 30 May 1977, lot 83 (all three illustrated in Alexis Kugel, Complètement piqué. Le fol art de l'écaille à la cour de Naples, Paris 2018, p.19, ill.11, 12 and p.40 ill.44).