ITALIE, XVIIE SIÈCLE Lot n° 8

PLAQUE REPRESENTING APOLLON AND CALLIOPE Lapis lazuli 21 x 15.5 cm Gilded Wooden Frame 44.5 x 38.5 cm (with frame) Fêlures Bibliographie - Annamaria Giusti, La marquetterie de pierres dures, Citadelles & Mazenod, Paris, 2005, fig 38, p. 51. This plate with mythological decoration represents Apollo and Calliope. A muse of epic poetry, she can be recognized by her attributes: a stylus and a volume. Daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, she is also the mother of Orpheus. Used as an ornamental stone, lapis lazuli is characterized by its intense blue colour overseas. Composed of tiny pyrite crystals, sometimes auriferous, which give it the appearance of being strewn with gold. Widely used in Milan and Florence during the 16th and 17th centuries, lapis lazuli adorns cabinets and table tops in marble and polychrome stone marquetry. The lapidaries also make vases out of them, which are then decorated with precious goldsmith's mounts. These works of unheard-of luxury then came to enrich the cabinets of curiosities of the greatest collectors and sovereigns of Europe such as the Medici in Florence or Emperor Rudolph II in Prague. Obtained from the Milanese workshop of the Miseroni family, their approach will be taken up by the kings of France, Naples and Spain, new lovers of these pieces of bravery. One example is a large lapis lazuli vase made in 1583 after a drawing by Bernardo Buontalenti and decorated with a gold enamelled frame by Jacques Bylivelt, kept at the Museo degli Argenti in Florence (fig. 1). Often the lapis lazuli background is used as a deep blue sky in marquetry compositions or as a background to a painted scene whose composition is based on the veins of the stone. In this respect, bas-reliefs such as the one presented here are much rarer. Finally, let us mention the medallion made in Florence between 1567 and 1569 representing the profile of Duke Como I de Medici and kept at the Metropolitan Muse