Valentino Panciera Besarel, born in 1829 in Belluno, came from a long lineage of of wood carver - his great‑grandfather (Valentino 1747‑1811), grandfather Giovanni (1778‑1842), and father Giovanni Battista (1801‑1873) all continued in the rich workshop practices established by the family. His early training was local, in the Val di Zoldo and Belluno region; he later attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice (from about 1855‑57) and developed an atelier on the Grand Canal. Besarel exhibited in major exhibitions, including the Vienna (1873), Paris (1878), ultimately receiving the Médaille d’Or at the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle and becoming a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur. Besarel’s oeuvre notably included both secular commissions and ecclesiastical or public commemorative works, the former for which he became renowned for the high technical execution of this furniture and figural carving. Besarel was widely admired in his time for his technical mastery and often praised the precision of the carving, the richness of decorative detail, and the effective revival of earlier styles.
A virtuoso in carving, Besarel’s style is often stylistically aligned with his 18th century Venetian master, Andrea Brustolon (d. 1732) who excelled at the art of furniture-carving. Additionally, the artist drew heavily on Renaissance and mannerist idioms, in particular in compositional motifs and poses. For example, Besarel’s Triton and Nereid figures are said to recall the fluidity of mannerist sculpture, an example of which was offered, Christie’s, Paris, 11 June 2025, lot 30. Baserel’s homage to Brustolon (Monumento ad Andrea Brustolon, 1878) now resides in the Santa Caterina d'Alessandria in Dont, Val di Zoldo, Belluno. Further works are held in Museo Francesco Borgogna (Borgogna Museum), Vercelli. An exhibition dedicated to the artist, “Valentino Panciera Besarel (1829‑1902): storia e arte di una bottega d’intaglio in Veneto” (Belluno, 2002) was one of the first retrospectives to explore his technical mastery.
Harvey C. Wheeler (d. 1947), who reputedly owned this present pair of imposing figures, was a noted early 20th century industrialist who founded the Initial Towel Supply Company in Boston, MA. In addition to holding multiple patents which revolutionized the home service industry in the 1910s-1920s, Wheeler was an avid art collector, filling the rooms of his Chestnut Hill residence with an extensive art, sculpture and jewelry collection.