AN ITALIAN BRASS-MOUNTED IVORY-INLAID EBONY, FRUITWOOD AND GREEN-STAINED MARQUETRY CENTRE TABLE

This important table by the Florentine brothers, Luigi and Angiolo Falcini (fl. 1836-69), is modelled on the celebrated Baroque table made for the Medici family in the third quarter of the 17th century, attributed to Lionardo van der Vinne (d. 1713), and by the 19th century in the collection of the Accademia delle Belle Arti, now in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence. It is one of four very similar tables attributed to the Falcini brothers, which are known to date; one in the National Gallery of Ottawa (no. 18187, purchased 1974), one in the Institute of Fine Arts in Detroit (no. 71.293, provenance, W. Apolloni, Rome), and one sold at auction (Sotheby’s London, 2 October 1998, lot 337, subsequently Sotheby’s New York, 16 November 2011, lot 77). Interestingly, the Medici family correspondingly commissioned four tables of this model in 1679 (F.J. Cummings, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Vol. 51, No. 1, 1972, pp. 12-13). In 1977, the similarity of the Detroit table to the Medici table in the Palazzo Pitti led to a suggestion that the former was by van der Vinne and 17th century (A. Gonzalez-Palacios, 'A Grand-Ducal Table’, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Vol. 55, No. 44, 1977, p. 169). This mistaken attribution demonstrates that the exceptional craftsmanship of the Falcini brothers can be taken for the work of a Renaissance master, and suggests their ability to recreate a series of tables of almost indistinguishable quality from the originals. When compared, the present table is not identical to the Medici table, but a magnificent interpretation by the Falcini brothers.