AN ITALIAN ORMOLU-MOUNTED GILTWOOD AND POLYCHROME-DECORATED SEDAN CHAIR

This lavish sedan chair can be firmly attributed to the royal Bourbon workshops in Naples on the basis of its close similarities to a similar example in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, see E. Baccheschi, Mobili Italiani del Meridione, Milan, 1966, p. 57. The magnificence of Neapolitan sedan chairs and carriages was famous throughout Europe in the eighteenth century, with no less a visitor than the Marquis de Sade remarking on the 'bellezza di questi carri', which gave the court 'un aria di magnificenza', in a letter of 1776. A visiting Spaniard, Leandro Fernandez de Moratin, remarked in 1793 on 'the lightness and grace of the design, the tastefulness of the painted decoration and the beauty of the lacquers' of the Neapolitan carriages and sedan chairs. Other Neapolitan sedan chairs attributable to the royal Bourbon workshops include one formerly in the collection of baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild at Mentmore Towers, later sold by the Earl of Rosebery, see Sotheby's House Sale, 18-27 May 1977, lot 274; one in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts (inv. n. 22.211); and one sold Christie’s, London, 5 July 2001, lot 10 (£39,950).