A PAIR OF NORTH ITALIAN FRUITWOOD AND BOXWOOD MARQUETRY AND TULIPWOOD-CROSSBANDED, ROSEWOOD AND KINGWOOD COMMODES

Giuseppe Maggiolini (1738-1814) ranks as perhaps the most celebrated Italian cabinet-maker. Credited with producing fine marquetry in his distinctive neoclassical style, Maggiolini worked extensively for the aristocracy in Northern Italy, including Marchese Litta, who, along with the painter-architect Guiseppe Levati, first recognised his talents as an intarsiatore in the 1760s. His many projects included the furnishing of the Palazzo Ducale in Milan, the Villa Reale in Monza and the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua. He also worked extensively for the Austrian Governor General of Milan, Archduke Ferdinand, to whom he also supplied furniture destined for Stanislas Poniatowski and for Elizabeth of Russia. A cabinet-on-commode of extremely closely related design, exhibiting very similar marquetry to the commode section is illustrated in G. Morazzoni, Il Mobile Intarsiato di Giuseppi Maggiolini, Milan, 1957; two further commodes of near identical design are illustrated, J. Mainar and J. Echalecu, exhibition catalogue, Mobiliari del Segle XVIII, Sala d'Art Daedalus, Barcelona, 1979, pp. 22 & 23, nos. 15 & 16, where their origin is suggested as Genoa.

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