Object Description
An extremely large mid 19th Century grand tour specimen marble top with rare and fine marble and hardstone examples.
Italy Rome Circa 1840- 1860
Inlaid with concentric rings of chevron-shaped marbles including: brocatelle, verde antico, giallo antico, portor, Sicilian Jasper, breche violette, rouge royale, porphyry, blue turquin, Siena, griotte, breche d;Alep, and many others.
Table tops of this sort required the skills of many craftspeople in order to be executed successfully. Firstly a suitable stock of marble fragments had to be acquired. The marbles then had to be sorted and grouped in order to create the most effective designs. Close study of these pieces reveals the harmonious colours employed in the best examples, as compared to the haphazard lack of organisation used in lesser pieces. The marbles in this piece have been arranged so that they complement the pieces inlaid near to them whilst at the same time not being so similar to their neighbours as to undermine the mosaic effect. The eye is not drawn to one inlaid specimen in particular but rather to the effect of the whole, exactly as the artisans who made this piece would have intended.
Pieces such as this were produced as the ultimate grand tour souvenirs during this period and could be acquired with a contemporary Italian-made base supplied by the same workshop and its allied suppliers or transported to the purchaser’s home without a base, ready to be mounted in that person’s country by a table maker of their choice.
Tops of this size and quality are extremely hard to find and often form parts of important museum and private collections