Object details
Object number
F25n13
Creator(s)
Italian, Venice
Title
Seat from a Gig (Sedia per Calesse)
Date
early 18th century
Medium
Painted and gilded walnut
Dimensions
100 x 88.7 x 45 cm (39 3/8 x 34 15/16 x 17 11/16 in.)
Provenance
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the antiques dealers Moisè Dalla Torre and Co., Venice on 20 September 1899 for 200 lire.
Commentary
This elegant chair was made for a gig, a light two-wheeled carriage for one person. Surviving detached gig seats are sometimes erroneously called gondola chairs. Indeed, it was called this by Isabella Gardner. According to Morris Carter, the museum’s first director, she was carried around her museum in it after being paralyzed by a stroke in 1919. Its Asian figures in landscapes, accompanied by flowers and shell motifs of applied and painted pastiglia on a deep red ground, are characteristic of Venetian furniture made to imitate Chinese lacquer.
Bibliography
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston: 1935), p. 202. (Italian, 18th century)
Geoffrey de Bellaigue. Furniture, Clocks, and Gilt Bronzes: The James A. Rothschild Collection at Wadesdon Manor (Fribourg, 1974), p. 666.
Alexandra Libby and Stanton Thomas. Venice in the Age of Canaletto. Exh. cat. (Sarasota: The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 2009), pp. 142-43, no. 38.
Fausto Calderai and Alan Chong. Furnishing a Museum: Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Collection of Italian Furniture (Boston: 2011), pp. 220-23, no. 99.
Gallery
Veronese Room
Rights and reproductions
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