A pair of North Italian painted and giltwood consoles, probably Genoa, late 18th century

Cambi, Genoa, 19 December 2017, lot 7 (sold 32 600 €)

Related literature:

E. Colle, Il mobile neoclassico in Italia: Arredi e decorazioni d’interni dal 1775 al 1800, Milan, 2005, p. 198 for a console with mounts in the sale taste.

Genoa’s many centuries of wealth and power as a key Mediterranean port city meant that a clutch of wealthy families drove a strong market for luxurious furniture in fashionable styles, even once the city was on the wane in the 18th century. This giltwood table is an example of the Neoclassical taste in Italian fine residences, adopted in a final flourish of elegance for the palazzi of Genoa’s old regime before the city succumbed to French forces in the 1790s and the 700-year republic came to an end. Neoclassicism came earlier to Genoa than many other regions of Italy, partly due to direct contact with French architects: Charles de Wailly, for instance, worked on the Palazzo Spinola, one of the most important neoclassical commissions in Genoa. One of the first Neoclassical buildings in Genoa was the seat of the city’s political power, the Doge’s Palace: after the older edifice burned down in a major fire in 1777, the public competition for its redesign was won by the Neoclassical architect Simone Cantoni.

Our console table incorporates the neoclassical decorative vocabulary characteristic of these innovative architects, which inspired the great Genoese cabinetmakers such as Battista and Pasquale Marchese, Giuseppe Seppe, Francesco Massone, and others. It features the mask of Mercury, naturalistic foliate scrolls, and square legs decorated with cascading foliage. This neoclassical ornamentation, with variations, can be found on other console tables, such as one sold in An Italian Collection Journey: 16th-20th Century Paintings and Decorative Arts, Sotheby’s Milan, September 25, 2025, lot 128. Another console table adorned with rosettes and fluted legs was presented in Tomasso II, Sotheby’s London, October 19, 2021, lot 111.