Inlaid small table

Early decades of the 19th century, school of Giuseppe Maggiolini (1738 – 1814) Inlaid small table Various types of wood (walnut, cherry, rosewood, boxwood), cm 78.5 x 79.5 x 81 The profound renovation of cabinet making, first in Lombardy, then nationally and later in Europe, occurred with the gradual abandonment of the prevailing Rococo styles of the late 18th century. The Lombard production of inlaid furniture persisted until the 1840s/50s, concentrating extraordinary examples of this happy change in half a century. The undisputed protagonist of the artistic scene of neoclassical Milan was Giuseppe Maggiolini, the first cabinet maker to be defined, by contemporary sources, as an artist. Active as early as the end of the 18th century, Maggiolini soon abandoned the repetitive Rococo language thanks to being summoned to the court of Ferdinand of Habsburg, archduke settled in the city of Milan in the 1770s. In this enlightened context, Maggiolini had the opportunity to collaborate with the most up-to-date exponents of the artistic and architectural field, engaged in the Archducal construction sites of today's Palazzo Ducale in Milan and Monza. The present example, of clear Lombard invention, reflects the incisiveness of Maggiolini's art: audacious ornamental modules are figured in a subtle play of sinuous symmetries around a central octagon. The perimeter plaques inside the walnut veneer are enriched with phytomorphic volutes elaborated in an alternation of flowers and lobed leaves; the presence of tritons holding racemes in the most extensive segment and dolphins with curled tails at the corners of the surrounding octagon contribute to visually centering the main composition, consisting of a flower and radiating racemes. The boxwood threading delimits the vivacity of the colors of cherry and rosewood, accentuating the preciousness of the artifact in vibrant alternation. The elegance of the small table is increased by the legs made in a bobbin shape, with a small die to which an undulating leaf is connected, of evocative visual lightness. It is possible to compare the solutions devised by the present example with the drawings of Maggiolini's workshop, now preserved in the Gabinetto dei Disegni in Milan (but see also G. Beretti, A. González-Palacios, Giuseppe Maggiolini. Catalogue raisonné of the drawings, Milan 2014).