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Pair of Italian 19th Century Baroque Carved Arm Throne Chairs, Figural Carvings

Offered by: GREENWICH LIVING DESIGN

Description
Pair of Italian 19th century Baroque carved arm throne chairs. The pair with figural carvings and putti sleeping on beds of leafs, attributed to Valentino Panciera Besarel (Venice, 1829-1902) in the manner of Andrea Brustolon (1662-1732). The ornately carved thrones, each flanked with figures of standing males supporting a branch-carved armrests with vines. Raised on cabriolet scrolled legs.
Andrea Brustolon (20 July 1662–25 October 1732) was an Italian sculptor in wood. He is known for his furnishings in the Baroque style and devotional sculptures.
Biography
He was trained in a vigorous local tradition of sculpture in his native Belluno, in the Venetian terraferma, and in the studio of the Genoese sculptor Filippo Parodi, who was carrying out commissions at Padua and at Venice (1677). He spent the years 1678-1680 at Rome, where the High Baroque sculpture of Bernini and his contemporaries polished his style. Apart from that, the first phase of Brustolon's working career was spent in Venice, 1680–1685. Brustolon is documented at several Venetian churches where he executed decorative carving in such profusion that he must have quickly assembled a large studio of assistants. As with his contemporary in London, Grinling Gibbons almost all the high quality robust Baroque carving in Venice has been attributed to Brustolon at one time or another. In the Venetian Ghetto, at the Scola Levantina, Brustolon provided the woodwork for the synagogue on the piano nobile, where the carved, canopied bimah is supported on Solomonic columns, which Brustolon had seen in Bernini's baldacchino in the Basilica of St Peter's.
His furniture included armchairs with figural sculptures that take the place of front legs and armrest supports, inspired by his experience of Bernini's Cathedra Petri. The gueridon, a tall Stand for a candelabrum, offered Brustolon unhampered possibilities for variations of the idea of a caryatid or atlas: the familiar Baroque painted and ebonized figural gueridons, endlessly reproduced since the 18th century, found their models in Brustolon's work.
His secular commissions from Pietro Venier, of the Venier di San Vio family (a suite of forty sculptural pieces that can be seen in the Sala di Brustolon of the Ca' Rezzonico, Venice), from the Pisani of Strà, and from the Correr di San Simeone families encourage the attribution to him of some extravagantly rich undocumented moveable furniture. Andrea Brustolon's elaborate carved furniture aspired towards the condition of sculpture, such as the Dutch bases for console tables which look like enlargements of the work of the two Van Vianens, Paulus and Adam, perhaps the greatest Dutch silversmiths of the period. These carved pieces display the Baroque tendency to develop a form three-dimensionally in space.
Brustolon's walnut, boxwood and ebony pieces transcend ordinary functional limitations of furniture; they are constructed of elaborately carved figures. The framework of Brustolon's chairs, side tables and gueridons were carved as gnarled tree branches, with further supports of putti and male figures carved in ebony. Backrests of the chairs, which were never touched in the rigidly upright posture that contemporary etiquette demanded, were carved with allegories of vanity, fire and music, etc.
The most extravagant piece delivered for Pietro Venier was a large side table and vase-stand of box and ebony, designed as a single ensemble to display rare imported Japanese porcelain vases. The eclectic allegories include Hercules with the Hydra and Cerberus, males and reclining river-gods (see ref.).
For the Correr, less extrovert chairs bear female nudes extended along the armrests. For the Pisani, he carved a suite of twelve chairs (now at the Palazzo Quirinale) with flowers, fruit, leaves and branches to symbolize the twelve months of the year. Work by Brustolon is at the Villa Pisani at Stra.
In 1685 Brustolon returned to the house where he was born at Belluno, and from that time devoted himself mainly to tabernacles and devotional sculptures in walnut, boxwood or ivory. His polychromed ivory Corpus from a crucifix is in the Museo Civico di Belluno, which preserves some of Brustolon's preparatory drawings for frames to be carved with putti displaying emblems. A pair of boxwood sculptures, The Sacrifice of Abraham and Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, integral with scrolling barocchetto stands, were in the collection of Justus Liebig (Liebigshaus, Frankfort). An altarpiece, circa 1720, is at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
He died in Belluno in 1732.
Valentino Panciera Besarel (1829-1902) was Andrea Brustolon's great heir of the 19th century in wood carving; he presented himself as Brustolon's natural successor and alter ego. He studied from 1855-1857 in Venice and his career developed the most in there and in Belluno, although it was also turned to countries beyond the Alps. He applied in furniture and in ecclesiastical and secular decoration, showing his talents in furniture and frames making.
References:
Catalogue by Massimo de Grassi, Valentino Panciera Besarel, Verona, 2002) and was the subject of a monograph, Giovanni Angelini, Gli Scultori Panciera Besarel (Belluno 2002).
Biasuz G., and Buttignon M.G., 1969. Andrea Brustolon (Istituto Veneto Arti Grafiche) 1969
Gonzales-Palacios, Alvar, 1967. Il mobilio del '700 veneto
Semenzato, G., 1967. La scultura veneta del Seicento e del Settecento (Turin: Alfieri)
Valcanover, F., 1960. Indice delle opere d'arte della città e provincia di Belluno (Venice)
Biasuz, G., and E. Lacchin, 1928. Brustolon, preface by U. Ometti (Venice: Zanetti).

More Information

Period:	19th Century
Condition:	Wear consistent with age and use. Minor fading.
Creation Date:	1880s
Styles / Movements:	Baroque, Traditional
Dealer Reference #:	101-4973
Incollect Reference #:	624263

Message from Seller:

GREENWICH LIVING DESIGN (est. 1975) is an Antique and 20th Century Art & Design Gallery located in Stamford, CT for over 30 years. Our gallery carries rare and important design objects by both iconic and lesser-known designers from the 18th to the 20th Century – with a focus on 20th Century French design. Recent installations feature Pierre Jeanneret, Maison Jansen, Gio Ponti, Phillip & Kelvin LaVerne, Warren Platner, Ueli Berger, Massimo Vignelli, and many more.