A PAIR OF NORTH ITALIAN GILTWOOD PEDESTALS

These vigorously shaped pedestals with their grotesque masks growing out of deeply sculptural scrolls and foliage relate to a group of baroque sculptural Tuscan works of the late 16th and 17th Century. A drawing by D.M. Marmi of the late 16th century depicts a row of similar heavily scrolled pedestals supporting busts (E. Colle, I Mobili di Palazzo Pitti, Il Periodo dei Medici, 1537 - 1737, Florence, 1997, p. 243).

The incorporation of zoomorphic figure heads is found in architectural elements such as the pilasters flanking the Biblioteca degli Intronati in Siena, which has entire figures growing out of the scrolls in the capitals (E. Colle, Il Mobile Barocco in Italia, Milan, 2000, p. 172). Early examples are generally more severe in their form such as in the pedestals in the Chiesa dei Santi Quirico e Lucia, Montelupo, where the figure-head rests on rectilinear pilasters flanked by scrolls that grow the mask (A.M. Massinelli, Il Mobile Toscano, Milan, 1993, p. 155, cat. XL) or the pedestals in the Museo degli Argenti in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (Colle, op. cit., 1997, p. 243, cat. 80), while later examples emphasize the sculptural aspects of the figures more strongly as demonstrated by a torchère in the Palazzo Chigi Sarancini, Siena, of the third quarter 17th century (Colle, op. cit., 2000, p. 172).
Interestingly an analysis of the decoration of the present lot shows that these pedestals have traces of an earlier dark stain or paint surface beneath the present gilding, conforming to the decoration of the aforementioned comparable examples.