PIETRA DURA TABLETOP. MARBLE AND HARDSTONES.

Round table top in marbles and hard stones. “Branches and grapes.” Inspired by Italian models from the 16th-17th centuries. Circular table top with a motif of vine leaves and black and white grapes in the center on a black background. An outer band, marked with two white lines, highlights this element and shows a variegated composition with varied flowers and stems with leaves. This form of inlay, called “hard stone work”, uses marbles of different colors and veins and stones with a hardness on the Mohs scale greater than 6. Lapis lazuli and Belgian black marble for the backgrounds were used very often and As was often the case with these materials, they had to be imported, hence the high price these works acquired. Desks, furniture, vases, plaques... were made for the high aristocracy and the courts in different European workshops. The technique was born in Florence, thanks to the interest on the part of Piero de Medici and Lorenzo the Magnificent to revitalize a Roman mosaic technique (opus sectile). Starting in 1600, naturalistic motifs were preferred over other themes and other production centers of great importance were established: in France, the Gobelin Factory; The Royal Workshop of Naples took over from the Florentine when the Medici disappeared; In Spain, Charles III established another in the Royal Site of El Buen Retiro, which disappeared at the beginning of the 19th century. The present example is inspired by this tradition. Compare with works preserved in important collections: those preserved in the Museo Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, the table from the Prado Museum in Madrid made by Francesco Ghinghi in the Real Laboratorio Delle Piedre Dure in Naples (catalog number O00511), or the panel “Parrot perched on a pear tree” created in the workshops of the Grand Duke of Tuscany in Florence and preserved in the Moscow Kremlin Museum (Russia).

· Size: Diam. 120 cms.