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The Variety of Furniture

by M.Tajocchi

Furniture is a silent testimonial to the times. It marks the time that pas- ses, it preserves time and it sets it forth for new generations. Furniture’s power of fascination stays untouched through time since it surprises and impassions and beckons us to possess it. The beauty of furniture is often accentuated by its contamination with objects, by that same wealth of variety that also makes an art collection both unique and fascinating.
Three works tie neatly in with such a sophisticated taste for collecting, all going under the hammer at the next auction of “Furniture, Sculpture and Objets d’Art”, on November 14th in Genoa. Only by chasing our passions can we enjoy the beauty of collecting as once said Walter Benjamin, a great collector, in his Scritti: “For the collector, I mean the authentic collector, the collector as a “collector” should be, possession is the deepest relationship that you can have with another thing: not as if these things were living in him but rather as if it was he who lived in them”.
The first work is a curved bas-relief in fifteenth-century marble sculpted by Gregorio di Lorenzo (Florence circa 1436 – Forlì circa 1504) and featuring the Madonna with Child Clutching a little Bird and two Cherubs, in which this brilliant pupil and assistant of Desiderio da Settignano would seem to have been in close contact with artists of his generation such as Desiderio himself, Mino da Fiesole and Anto- nio Rossellino – both a delicate and intimate development of themes related to the Madonna.
The second work is a large bronze, dated to the Seventeenth-Eighteenth centuries and featuring an eagle and a tortoise.
Lastly, a pair of Louis XVI gilt wall tables in carved wood, in a style echoing Piranesi, made in the manner of the refined wood-carver Antonio Landucci and hailing from the Galleria Sangiorgi, one of the most famous galleries in Rome in the 1930’s. These two pieces of furniture are magnificent examples of some of the highest level of furniture-making in Rome from around 1770 to 1780, destined for the homes of some of the most important clients from Rome and beyond.