Chair (sedia) painted with exotic figures

Unknown (Italian)

Item type:

furniture

Date of creation:

1725-1750

Height:

109.0 cm  (42 15/16 in.)

Width:

52.5 cm  (20 11/16 in.)

Depth:

45.5 cm  (17 15/16 in.)

Technique / Medium:

painted wood (walnut)

Place of creation:

Italia

Description

This chair's center slat depicts a man smoking a pipe and playing a drum while a woman dances with small percussion instruments in each hand (perhaps cymbals or castanets). It is one of three now displayed in the Gardner Museum's Early Italian Room, described on their website as follows: The slats on this set of chairs are delightfully painted with various figures in exotic ancient Middle Eastern, African, or Asian garb. Although painted furniture is often connected with Venice, the chairs possess an unusual mixture of stylistic forms and decorative designs, and may have been made in central Italy, perhaps Lucca or Rome. Isabella Stewart Gardner first placed the chairs in her Chinese Room, where they accorded beautifully with the eclectic mixture of Japanese and Chinese objects, as well as nineteenth-century paintings.They are now arranged among painted cassone and altarpieces. Gentile Bellini’s Seated Scribe, displayed in the same gallery, strengthens the links between the arts of Italy and the East. Source: Fausto Calderai, "Chairs," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 129.

Iconclass

43C9
dancing

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Cylindrical drum [2532]
Percussion instruments [2370]

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

RIdIM record id

5590