Console table

Attributed to Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo
Ornament designs after Michelangelo Pergolesi

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 553

With its pierced legs and finely carved details, this table represents Neoclassical Piedmontese furniture at the highest level of quality. It shows the combined influences of French and Italian furniture often present in furniture of this region, which in the eighteenth century was the Kingdom of Savoy, an independent state that was artistically as French as it was Italian.

It has been attributed to Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (1745–1820), one of the leading cabinetmakers in Turin at this period, who worked chiefly on royal commissions. However, recent research has unveiled a number of contemporary furniture makers whose style was very similar. The composition is closely related to the designs of Michelangelo Pergolesi (d. 1801), the prolific Italian master of Neoclassical ornament. The vignette of Leda and the Swan in the frieze is directly derived from his designs.

Console table, Attributed to Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (1745–1820), Carved, painted and gilded poplar wood; marble top, Italian, Turin

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