Side chair (part of a set)

Unknown

ca. 1790–1800 · Carved, gilded and painted walnut, reverse-painted glass (verre églomisé), cut and voided 17th-century crimson silk velvet probably not original to the chair · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

This chair, together with the settee in the Florence Gould Galleries, originally belonged to a large set of seat furniture that included at least four settees and twenty side chairs. It was formerly thought to have been commissioned for the Villa Palagonia at Bagheria near Palermo, but the provenance remains undocumented, and the initials in the cipher at the center of the back, PPL, are as yet unidentified. The reverse-painted glass panels imitate agate, lapis, and marble. They are a distinctive feature often used on late-eighteenth-century Sicilian Neoclassical furniture.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 1790–1800

Medium

Carved, gilded and painted walnut, reverse-painted glass (verre églomisé), cut and voided 17th-century crimson silk velvet probably not original to the chair

Culture

Italian, Sicily

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Gift of John P. Richardson, 1992