by Mauro Tajocchi
Eclecticism is the watchword for the next auction of Furniture, Sculptures and Art Objects on 26 – 27 November 2020. A catalogue where every single lot tells a passion, a collecting impulse. Like a wunderkammer, wonder and amazement are the common thread that unites the objects presented, whether large or small, anonymous or famous. And what more prestigious patronage than that of the King and Queen of Italy, in our case Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy. To furnish the Villa Reale in Monza, they had an imposing “French style” desk made by a Milanese craftsman, perhaps Giuseppe Speluzzi, who also made another desk with bronzes identical to ours and now kept in the prestigious collections of the Quirinale. As it can be read in the exhaustive file by Enrico Colle – one of the greatest scholars in the history of Italian furniture – our elegant piece of furniture is mentioned in the inventory drawn up between 1881 and 1910 as “Proprietà Privata di S.M.” until 1908 in the “Sala dell’Appartamento di S. M.”. the Queen” and marked with the letter “N” (a document now kept in the Historical Archive of the Presidency of the Republic in the Royal House among the Registers of the Royal Residences in Italy), transferred on 12 August of that year to the Castle of Racconigi (as noted in the inventory entry). An eye-catching and original desk which, together with a corpus of works of neo-seventeenth-century and historicist taste, shows the versatility of manufacture, which evolved according to the tastes of the time. It was commissioned from some companies then specialised in the production of stylish furniture. The workshops of Andreoni brothers, Ferdinando Pogliani, Luigi Brambilla, the widow Arrigoni and Luigi Cassani, as well as the aforementioned Speluzzi, were all very fashionable.
The Collar of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation in gold, created around 1860, is of great charm and precious workmanship. It was the highest honour of the House of Savoy, which, in the sixteenth century, was one of the Four illustrious Orders of knighthood together with that of the Garter, the Golden Fleece and Saint Micheal.
Instituted by Amadeus VI of Savoy in 1364, on the occasion of a joust in memory of the victory of Ferdinand II of Saluzzo, he had a collar made for himself and 14 other knights, described by the chronicles of the time as similar to that of greyhounds. The purpose of this precious ornament was to “induce union and fraternity among the powerful, so that private wars could be avoided”. It was reserved for the most illustrious and faithful nobles who respected the statutory rule that all the members were considered equals and called each other “brothers”.
Collare dell’Ordine Supremo della Santissima Annunziata in oro circa 1860
Stima € 7.000 – 9.000