AN ITALIAN PARCEL-GILT AND GREEN-PAINTED FAUTEUIL

This sophisticated fauteuil, with its restrained classical ornament, carved mask, pierced back and rounded seat, shares the same form and decoration with Roman examples of the late 18th Century. One example, from the Fondazione Caetani, is illustrated in A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Fasto Romano, Rome, 1991, p. 183, fig. 132 and another, from the collection of Sir Harold Acton, can be seen in A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto: Roma e il Regno delle Due Sicilie, Milan, 1984, vol. II, p. 84, fig. 162. A final comparable example is illustrated in H. C. Fioratti, Il Mobile Italiano, Milan, 2004, p. 257, fig. 411.
A giltwood fauteuil with similar curved pierced back, bucranium mask and ribbon-tied swag to the seat was in the collection of Giovanni Pratesi, Florence, sold Sotheby's, New York, 30 September 2011, lot 151 ($12,500).