Italian, Rome
Chair (Sedia) Painted with Figures, 1725-1749
Painted walnut, 109 x 52.5 x 45.5 cm (42 15/16 x 20 11/16 x 17 15/16 in.)
The back, apron, and legs of the chair are painted with sections of a black background with gold designs and a white background with colorful floral designs. The splat shows a light-skinned man sitting cross-legged on a pedestal, under a gold parasol decorated with ribbons. The man has a queue and a long, drooping mustache. He is wearing an orange robe over a yellow shirt and white pants, and red slippers. The man stares with eyes averted. To our left, a man in a yellow robe kneels below the pedestal and looks up at the figure in the center, handing him an object on a rope. To our right, a figure in a blue robe with white collar bows to the center figure. The background includes trees and branches, birds, and sky. The chair’s seat is upholstered in a celery green, moiré ribbed weave.
Early Italian Room
Commentary
The slats on this set of chairs are delightfully painted with various figures in exotic ancient Middle Eastern, African, or Asian garb. Although painted furniture is often connected with Venice, the chairs possess an unusual mixture of stylistic forms and decorative designs, and may have been made in central Italy, perhaps Lucca or Rome.
Isabella Stewart Gardner first placed the chairs in her Chinese Room, where they accorded beautifully with the eclectic mixture of Japanese and Chinese objects, as well as nineteenth-century paintings.They are now arranged among painted cassone and altarpieces. Gentile Bellini’s Seated Scribe, displayed in the same gallery, strengthens the links between the arts of Italy and the East.
Source: Fausto Calderai, "Chairs," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 129.
Isabella Stewart Gardner first placed the chairs in her Chinese Room, where they accorded beautifully with the eclectic mixture of Japanese and Chinese objects, as well as nineteenth-century paintings.They are now arranged among painted cassone and altarpieces. Gentile Bellini’s Seated Scribe, displayed in the same gallery, strengthens the links between the arts of Italy and the East.
Source: Fausto Calderai, "Chairs," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 129.