Prince Camillo Borghese

The Borghese Palaceꦛ Sale, Giacomini and Capobianchi, Ro🌞me, March 28-April 9, 1892, part of lot 847

Don Antonio Licata

Prince Baucina

Ercole Canessa

Mrs. Edith Rockefeller McCormick, American Art Associatio♒n/Anderson Galleries, January 5, 1934, part lot 671, 676, 677 or 678

Chicago, Th🍒e Art Institute of Chicago, June 1924 - November 1932

Camillo Borghese, Prince of Sulmona (1775–1832) became the♊ second husband of Napoleon's sister Pauline in 1803. As a wealthy young prince with pro-Napoleon leanings the union seemed to be well suited, but shortly after they were married the relationship cooled and the couple began to live apart, possibly as a result of Pauline's numerous affairs. Their dislike for each other did not prevent Napoleon conferring numerous honours and titles on Borghese making him Governor of Piedmont in 1808.

After Napoleon's downfall those who had supported him faced a certain amount of difficulty, and, consequently, Borghese left Pauline, fled Rome and spent ten years living in Florence with his 🍌mistress. He was eventually reunited with Pauline, on the pop𓆏e's insistence, three months before her death. The Prince returned to Florence where he died in 1832 being succeeded by his brother Francesco.

The Borghese service was composed of 500 silver-gilt objects and over 1,00🌼0 pieces of table silver and was primarily supplied by the French Imperial silversmith Martin-Guillaume Biennais (1764-1843). The service has eluded precise dating, but the majority was made around 1810 with further pieces being added in the 1820s by Italian silversmiths, including the♓ Scheggi brothers working to the original designs.

The Scheggi Brothers' workshop was the preeminent firm in early 19^th century Florence. They were suppliers to the court of Grand Duke Ferdinand III of Tuscany, supplementing his French dinner service by Biennais. They also added to the French Empire service designed by Percier and Fontaine for Prince Camillo Borghese and his wife, Pauline Bonaparte. The firm’s own designs were published as early as 1797-98 in the Magazzino di Mobilia.

The design for the current lot is based on the drawings in Recueil de Decorations Intérieures by Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre-François Fontaine (1762-1853). After both spending time studying the ancient monuments of Rome they met in Paris and worked on reinterpreting what they had seen to be used for architecture and decorative arts in their own time. Their designs were first issued in 1801 and published in full in 1812. The flanking hippocamps was a motif of which they were particularly fond and c🌱an be seen on a design for a wine cooler on plate 52.