AN ITALIAN POLYCHROME SCAGLIOLA-INLAID TABLE TOP

This fine scagliola-inlaid table top with a polychrome trompe l'oeil vignette depicting a butterfly hovering amongst antique vases, shells and coral, symbolic of wealth and fruitful excavations in the Italian peninsula, is closely related to a top illustrated in R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, Vol. III, page 302, fig. 80 (one of a pair of Regency console tables from the Dutton Collection). A second scagliola top, with an almost identical arrangement of objects, but on a statuary marble ground signed 'Clemente Susini, F 1801, Firenze', is in the collection of Ovedskloster Manor, one of the most prominent privately-built eighteenth-century country houses in Sweden (illustrated. H. Groth, Neoclassicism in the North, London, 1990, page 58, fig. 30).

A closely related pair of tops signed 'Clemente Sufini Firenza Fece Micali-Livorno, 1797' sold Castillo de Bendinat, Christie's Mallorca, May 24, 1999, lot 331. (£185,579).