A PAIR OF ITALIAN PIETRA DURA PLAQUES

This pair of beautiful pietra dura panels, depicting coastal capriccios with castles, classical ruins, oriental figures and fishing boats beyond, embodies the miraculous Florentine art of ‘painting in stone’. The art of inlaying in pietre dure was prized at all the courts of Europe, but it was at the Medici court of Florence that it reached its apogee, particularly under the patronage of Cosimo I (r. 1569-74), his son Francesco (r. 1574-87), and Cosimo's brother Ferdinand I (r. 1587-1609), who formally established the Grand Ducal workshop, the Galleria dei Lavori, in 1588. These works in hardstone and soft stone known as commessi di pietre dure, were often incorporated into cabinets and caskets. Several cabinets and caskets mounted with closely related panels with Albarese limestone backgrounds as in the present pair, are illustrated in Anna Maria Massinelli, ‘Hardstones,’ The Gilbert Collection, London, 2001, pp. 41-47, cats. 5, 6, 7).