Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco, Palazzo Venezia, Rome, May 21 - September 16, 1999

Enrico Colle, Il Mobile Barocco in Italia, Milan 2000, illustrated p.20 (with an associated later marble top)
Alvar González-Palacios, Arredi e Ornamenti alla Corte di Roma, Milan, 2004, pg. 74-76.
Alvar González-Palacios, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco (exh. cat., Palazzo Venezia, Rome, May 21–September 16, 1999), Milan, 1999, cat. no. 123.

With scattered age cracks, small nicks, scratches, surface dirt and minor losses to the carved elements consistent with age and use. Original gilding extensively rubbed. The base has possibly been slightly reduced in depth, with an old split running horizontally across the middle now restored with butterfly joints underneath.
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In this rare table a naturalistic tree trunk bursts forth and spirals away from a base overflowing with rocks, shells and flowers capturing the spirit of the Baroque with its drama and realism. Dating from the mid-seventeenth century, the design of this table can be attributed to the circle of the celebrated Baroque architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1660).  Like his contemporary architects Francesco Borromini and Carlo Fontana, the polymath Bernini painted, directed theater, and also produced designs for furniture, notably the pair of console tables executed by Antonio Chicari for the Chigi family now in the Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia (ill. Colle, n.21).

The earliest known precedent for this table is the base that Bernini had made for his marble San Lorenzo sculpture now in the Contini-Bonacossi collection in the Uffizi (ill. Alvar González-Palacios, "Bernini as a Furniture Designer", The Burlington Magazine, Nov. 1970, fig. 1). The stand, circa 1618, was highly innovative for its time with its naturalistic forms and painted and parcel-gilt decoration, just like on the present example and the Chigi tables, which broke from the tradition of the more typical fully gilt pieces of the time. In González-Palacios's analysis of this exceptional table he writes "the pedestal.. designed by Bernini and probably executed under his direct supervision by a most gifted carver, constitutes a milestone in the history of European furniture, establishing a prototype for the Roman console table of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries which in its turn provided the origins of the International Baroque style" (ibid., pg. 722).

Bernini collaborated with the Austrian decorative arts designer, Johan Paul Schor or Giovanni Paolo Tedesco, as he was known in Rome. As a draftsman, Schor produced drawings of coaches, furniture, and decorative objects, many of which were erroneously attributed to Bernini. Schor’s drawings show the inventiveness of the designs produced through the collaboration between Bernini and Schor. A drawing by the circle of Schor shows two twisted trunks very similar to the present example, illustrated Arredi e Ornamenti alla Corte di Roma, pg. 76. Two drawings in the Nationalmuseum of Sweden made between 1660 and 1688 by an unknown artist show two versions of entwined tree trunk tables similar to Bernini’s stand for San Lorenzo (fig. 1 and fig. 2). The present lot is also similar in its style and form to the two drawings. Another comparable example is a pair of tables with painted and parcel-gilt decoration in the collection of the Foundation of Valeria Rossi di Montelera (ibid., pg. 76).

There are still many questions about this table such as its original use and owner. The table features different types of plants that could reference a commission from one of the powerful Italian families of the time: rose vines for the Orsini, oak for the Chigi, and laurel for the Barberini.  However, in many of Bernini’s drawings, these types of plants reoccur frequently which make it difficult to tell whether it is a commissioned heraldic allusion or just an aesthetic choice. In the illustration in Arredi e Ornamenti alla Corte di Roma, the present table is shown with a later marble top. Originally, i🎀t could have been a stand for a sculpture or potentially an inginocchiatoio, or kneeler, with the uncarved part of the base meant for one’s knees.