BONAZZA GIOVANNI (1654-1736) Lot n° 225

BONAZZA GIOVANNI (1654-1736) Pair of wall-tables Boxwood c. 1690 cm. 155x80 h. 97 The two tables, together with a third of similar workmanship (fig. 1), were part of the collection of furnishings of the Demidoff counts and appeared at the auction of the Villa of Pratolino, near Florence, held in 1969. On that occasion the three boxwood wall tables were presented as works by Andrea Brustolon, attribution immediately and rightly rejected by Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios (1969, p. 115). The scholar, while not recognizing in these works the hand of the great master, nevertheless believed that they certainly belonged to his sphere, if not precisely to his workshop, falling into error in this case, abetted by the historiographical conjuncture that assumed for a very long time the name of Andrea Brustolon as the sole reference of Venetian cabinetmaking of the Baroque period. For several years now, critics have redefined the contours "of a rich and even crowded artistic landscape, at least if one reads the list of the numerous affiliates of the fraglia of Venetian woodcarvers of the early eighteenth century" (De Grassi 2013, p. 194) and highlighted some leading figures working in the field of woodcarving between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These include Giovanni Bonazza, whose well-known activity as a stone sculptor is flanked by a lesser-known one as a woodcarver: it is precisely to this Venetian artist that the three wall tables from the Demidoff villa at Pratolino belong, as demonstrated by stylistic analysis and comparison with other works by the master. The Demidoff tables " of which Gonzalez-Palacios himself (1969, p. 115 1986, p. 357) has highlighted the remarkable quality of the carving of the figures, which of fact replace the traditional structure " all respond to the same compositional layout: the plane is supported at the corners by four vigorous virile figures, in the manner of telamons, resting on a high plinth decorated with phytomorphic elements on the cross-pieces, which take the form of branches with their foliage, are softly reclining muliebral nudes, portrayed in the same gesticulating of the raised arm, while at the intersection of the same crossbars sits a dragon with gaping jaws Finally, a theory of amorinisdrawn at the height of the top serves as a belt to the tables " a presence that has suggested the adaptation of ornamental figures originally intended for another context (Gonzalez-Palacios 1986, p. 357)," and in the center of the long side two seraphic putti, placed in midair, hold a wreath of flowers and fruit. Characterized by an exorbitant exuberance, typical of Venetian furniture of the sculptural type of the Baroque period, these wall tables seem to obey the intent of arousing astonished wonder and reflect the vital creative imagination of their maker. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that a precedent for these achievements is constituted by the table in a private collection (fig. 2) attributed to Giacomo Piazzetta (De Grassi 2013) " but also in the past erroneously approached to Brustolon ", from which they seem to derive not only the typology of the piece of furniture, with the use of real sculptural elements in place of uprights and other structural parts, but also the iconographic layout of the female figures lying on the crossed crossbeams, posed imitating the same postures and the same gestures, the exact meaning of which, however, escapes us. Although no other similar works by Giovanni Bonazza are known to date " circumstance that makes the Demidoff tables precious and unique evidence of a unsuspected presence of the famous Venetian artist in the field of carving for furniture " it has already been mentioned how he, alongside stone sculpture, practiced wood carving: an activity verisimilarly