The rich white alabaster background and finely carved fruits in high relief of this pietra dura plaque distinguish it as a rare and precious survival.
The present pietra dura plaque relates closely to an important series of seven plaques in the Prado Museum, Madrid. One in particular (acquisition number O0850) shares an almost identical composition, craftsmanship and quality, depicting a gadrooned tazza filled with fruit, including pomegranates, cherries, and grape vines, on a white alabaster ground. The Prado series was possibly used as decoration on a piece of furniture in the collection of Carlos II of Spain (1661-1700) in the Torre del Rey de Francia in the Alcázar of Madrid "escriptorio en el que el plano de las nauettas era de alabastro blanco oriental y en medio un racimo de frutas y ojas de dichas piedra” recorded as a 'desk on which the surface of the small drawers is decorated with white oriental alabaster, and in the center a cluster of fruits and leaves made of the same stone'. This most likely refers to a writing cabinet inlaid with pietra dura plaques and given the rounded top of the present plaque, similiar to plaques seen on the central door of pietra dura cabinets, it is possible that this plaque was part of the same piece of furniture.
The luscious fruits executed in high relief relates to plaques produced at the Royal Gobelins Manufactory in France. In 1668 four Italian lapidaries, Orazio and Ferdinando Megliorini, Filippo Branchi and Gian Ambrogio Giacchetti, were installed at the Gobelins with the intention of rivalling the Opificio delle pietre dure that was one of the glories of the Medici court in Florence. The present plaque could well be the work of one of these four Italian masters. Depicting an arrangement of flowers and fruit in a magnificent alabaster vase, it beautifully demonstrates the way stones were carefully selected in order to represent materials and textures by means of their colour and figuring. The centrally placed pomegranate made of yellow and red jasper, burst open to reveal its glistening seeds carved in cut-glass is a particularly virtuoso instance of this art form.
Closely related plaques to this one but with black Belgian backgrounds include one sold Christie's London, 2 July 2024, lot 1 (£73,080) and the central plaques of the two celebrated cabinets made by Domenico Cucci at the Gobelins for Louis XIV and now in the collection of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle. A commode by Martin Carlin in the Royal Collection (RCIN 2588) is inset with similar plaques on black Belgian marble inlaid in relief with luscious fruits similar in quality to the present plaque. Two of these plaques are signed on the back by Gian Ambrogio Giachetti, one of the Florentine lapidaries working at the Gobelins between 1670 and 1675.
THE GRAND DUCAL WORKSHOPS
The Medici passion for hardstones and intarsia began under Cosimo I Medici (1519-1574) who acquired numerous works in pietra dura from Rome, the centre of lapidary production in the 16th century. While there were artisans of pietra dura in and around Florence from around 1550, it was only under Cosimo’s sons Francesco I (1541-1587) and Fernando I de Medici (1539-1609) that Florence was able to compete with and eventually exceed the output of the Eternal City. Fernando I founded the Grand Ducal pietre dure manufactory, known as the ‘Galleria dei Lavori’, in 1588. The workshops would provide works of art in hardstones and porphyry not only for Grand Ducal commissions but also for foreign princes and collectors and from its early stages it distinguished itself from the Roman lapidaries for its varied production and particularly its specialism in scenes uniting nature, art and science. While Florentine pietra dura utilised stones occurring naturally in Tuscany, such as pietra paesina and Alberese, the workshops also imported valuable and costly stones from across Italy and Europe, including Sicilian jasper, Bohemian agate and black marble from Flanders. Plaques to be incorporated into cabinets, caskets, clocks, tabletops and panels for display produced by the Florentine workshops depicted complex images including birds, vases of flowers, landscapes, narrative scenes and trophies which differed from the geometric patterns favoured in Rome. The Grand Ducal Workshops attracted skilled artisans and designers from across Italy and Europe including gem-cutters from Milan and cabinetmakers from Germany and the Low Countries. Superintendents of the Galleria dei Lavori included celebrated draughtsmen and designers like Jacopo Ligozzi (1547-1627) and Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725), the latter who, under the auspices of Cosimo III (1670-1723), originated rich baroque designs often incorporating flowers and birds on black paragone grounds, the culmination of which can be considered the famous Badminton Cabinet. The death of Gian Gastone (d. 1737), the last Medici Grand Duke did not spell the end of the Grand Ducal Workshops but from the mid-18th century the baroque repertoire of the manufactory, now under Habsburg control, was exchanged for realistic figures and landscapes based closely on formal paintings by artists like Giuseppe Zocchi (fl. 1750-67) and eventually for neoclassical compositions with the approach of the 19th century, by which point the workshops were known as the Opificio delle pietre dure, the name it retains to this day.