Offered by Franck Baptiste Paris
Rare tray consisting of a slate core veneered with samples of hard stones (pietra dura) framed by a double border of yellow Sienna marble and marble portor.
The central part with geometric perspective decoration of cubes offers a rich variety of stones including traditional basalt and rare volcanic stones with light and dark tones such as rhyolite, trachyte, syenite, rhyodacite, gabbro, diorite... from the different eruptions of Vesuvius.
Good condition, small restorations of use to the edges.
Mattia Valenziani*, Naples around 1780-1790.
Dimensions :
Width : 100 cm ; Depth : 54 cm
A similar copy, realized with marbles from the excavations of the villa of Tiberius in Capri, dated 1787 and dedicated to Ferdinand IV published in the book of Alvar González-Palacios, "Il Tempio del Gusto, Roma e il Regno delle Due Sicilie", Milano, 1982, pl. LX, pages 24, 369.
A pair of similar trays, Giovanni Pratesi Collection, Sotheby's Milan sale, March 20, 2023, lot 156 (330 200 euros).
A similar tray, Christie's London sale December 13, 2018 lot 15 (40,000 pounds)
Bibliography : Massimo Tettamanti, "Oggetti vulcanici a Napoli nel Settecento", 2021.
Our view :
These volcanic stones, coming from the different eruption sites of Vesuvius and their geometrical positionings resuming the shape of the Neapolitan pastries "Mostaccioli" allow us to attribute this tray to Mattia Valenziani.
The judicious choice of a yellow border and a geometrical decoration of cubes gives us a very bright composition which tirelessly attracts the eye.
The cubes with dark lower and light upper sides are framed by black and white rods that allow for a three-dimensional optical illusion effect.
It is necessary to greet the technical mastery of M.Valenziani who delivers us here a tray constituted by more than three hundred pieces of stones patiently cut and polished.
This work, characteristic of Italian productions, was made possible by several factors, the presence of ancient ruins, covered by the eruptive layers of Vesuvius and their excavations which provided an almost inexhaustible supply of hard stones with infinite chromatic richness, but also the presence in Naples of the European nobility who came to visit the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum and who alone could afford to buy these pieces at exorbitant rates.
Once arrived at their destination, the trays were mounted on legs, on custom-made furniture or simply hung on the wall, like a painting.
*The Valenziani, the father Tommaso (Rome 1725 - 1780 Naples) and the son Mattia (Rome 1746 - Naples around 1820) were restorers of antiquities active in Rome.
They were called by the king of Naples Charles III in 1759 to work on the bronzes and mosaics excavated in Ercolano in the Royal Residence of Portici.
Thanks to the research conducted by Massimo Tettamanti in 2021, we know the details of Valenziani's activity in Naples.
Tommaso Valenziani began the collection of volcanic stones from Vesuvius probably at the end of the 1750s, always conceived in the spirit of the "cabinets naturalia", responding to the scientific interest in volcanology, mineralogy and geology of the time and the memories of Naples, a city not to be missed on the Grand Tour.
William Hamilton, ambassador in Naples for the king George III, makes a tribute to the Valenziani in his collection of observations on the Vesuvius "Campi Flegrei" written in 1776, (plate XXXXIX).
Tettamanti attributes to the Valenziani the collection of lava stones of the Museum of History of Florence and identified in the catalog of the museum, published in 1790, with a cover in green leather bearing the golden coat of arms of the Bourbons and illustrated with distemper with the eruption of Vesuvius.
This catalog was probably a gift from the Queen of Naples "Maria Carolina" for her brother Pietro Leopoldo de Lorena, Grand Duke of Florence.
If Tommaso limited his activity to the collection of volcanic stones, his son Mattia, who worked a lot on the restoration of ancient "Opus Sectile", will open a workshop in Largo di Castello, in front of the Teatro Reale di San Carlo in Naples, where he will produce table tops in "pietra dura”.
