AN ITALIAN PATINATED-BRONZE-MOUNTED RED AND BLACK MARBLE TAZZA

In the early 19th Century Benedetto Boschetti fed the growing demand for high quality works of art with an antique theme created by an influx of grand tourists, many of whom were English. He is known to have had workshops in the centre of Rome where he produced a large number of classically inspired objects ranging from bronzes to tabletops and mosaics. Active circa 1820-1870, the Boschetti workshop exhibited at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851 and was renowned for the exceptional quality of its copies after the 'Antique', mainly in marble and bronze: for example a compare to the present lot, a marmo rosso antico reduction of the Warwick Vase, currently in the Toledo Museum, Ohio (see A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Roma e il Regno delle Due Sicilie, 1984, vol. II, fig. 286). F.S. Bonfigli noted in 1856 that 'The establishment is particularly conspicuous for its great variety of marble works, bronzes etc' (A. Gonzlez-Palacios, The Art of Mosaics, 1982, p.166).