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Lot Essay
With its wonderfully-detailed inlay executed in a great variety of woods, this table belongs to a small group of similar marquetry-decorated works by the elusive North Italian cabinet maker Giovanni Gorla. This group is the product of a master of great interest to the history of Italian furniture; highly skilled in the art of wooden inlay, endowed with a personal and refined taste for neoclassical ornamentation, Gorla’s memory seems to have been lost in the mists of time.
Active in Canegrate, a village west of Milan just a few kilometers from Parabiago, the birthplace of the famous Giuseppe Maggiolini (1738-1814), Gorla's birth and death dates are unknown. Recently, a pair of commodes signed by him and dated 1801 decorated with chinoiserie motifs showcasing his mastery of marquetry that could rival that of Giuseppe Maggiolini appeared at auction in Milan, see Il Ponte, 9 June 2020, lot 148. Other works very similar stylistically to these signed commode include an unusual writing desk sold Sotheby's, London, 11 December 2002, lot 88; a small table in a private collection, and a gaming table - executed in the early nineteenth century for Giovanni Battista Sommariva - at Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo on Lake Como.
Gorla was certainly an apprentice and a close collaborator of Maggiolini. The inlays that characterize the works attributed to him with certainty, now joined by this previously unpublished table, show a certain independence from the style of his master. Therefore, his training did not end at the workshop in Parabiago: his works indeed show influences external to the Lombard and even Italian context, including Tuscan and French influences.
His marquetry is characterized by minute inlays, outlined with accurate and delicate engravings. The design of the ornaments is refined, close to the taste expressed by the print models of Giocondo Albertolli (1742-1839); perhaps he had the opportunity to attend Albertolli's classes at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. Inlays with elegant, light, airy swirls, resembling luminous embroidery, always in maple laid on backgrounds of a recurring red wood. Gorla’s oeuvre is characterized by a preference for delicate leaves, fine borders, thin blades of grass, long strings of pearls.
For the pair of abovementioned chinoiserie commodes dated 1801, the ornamental layout of the sides and the front seem to have been inspired by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) and his wall decorations found in his Diverse maniere d'adornare i camini (plates 1-3, 55), giving Gorla’s works an unusual English feel. The connection with Albertolli is also confirmed by Gorla's passion for marquetry with harbor scenes: an ornamental technique found in Albertolli's decorations for the Villa Poggio Imperiale in Florence, where elegant Louis XVI stuccos frame marine paintings by Antonio Cioci.
This unpublished small oval table, although inserted in the neoclassical Milanese taste, is clearly influenced by Parisian models from the Louis XVI era, with sabots at the feet and an ormolu gallery to the top. Four reserves adorned with airy acanthus leaf swirls of pronounced Albertollian taste enclose the rectangular reserve with the beautiful seascape in natural and green-tinted woods, framed by an olive leaf border. The bands are decorated with inlays of leafy swirls and rosettes in maple on red background. The slender tapering legs, adorned with simple banding, are connected to the bands by a collar decorated with small swirls and a fine beading. Gorla must have executed this unprecedented work in the last decade of the eighteenth century, between the end of Habsburg rule and the arrival of Napoleon in Milan in 1796.
This table is an intriguing addition to the corpus of this still relatively unknown master, whose importance is destined to grow as studies on the history of Italian neoclassical furniture continue.
GIUSEPPE BERETTI
Furniture historian and restorer, author of numerous publications on Italian Neoclassical furniture, particularly on the ouvre of Giuseppe Maggiolini and his circle.
Active in Canegrate, a village west of Milan just a few kilometers from Parabiago, the birthplace of the famous Giuseppe Maggiolini (1738-1814), Gorla's birth and death dates are unknown. Recently, a pair of commodes signed by him and dated 1801 decorated with chinoiserie motifs showcasing his mastery of marquetry that could rival that of Giuseppe Maggiolini appeared at auction in Milan, see Il Ponte, 9 June 2020, lot 148. Other works very similar stylistically to these signed commode include an unusual writing desk sold Sotheby's, London, 11 December 2002, lot 88; a small table in a private collection, and a gaming table - executed in the early nineteenth century for Giovanni Battista Sommariva - at Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo on Lake Como.
Gorla was certainly an apprentice and a close collaborator of Maggiolini. The inlays that characterize the works attributed to him with certainty, now joined by this previously unpublished table, show a certain independence from the style of his master. Therefore, his training did not end at the workshop in Parabiago: his works indeed show influences external to the Lombard and even Italian context, including Tuscan and French influences.
His marquetry is characterized by minute inlays, outlined with accurate and delicate engravings. The design of the ornaments is refined, close to the taste expressed by the print models of Giocondo Albertolli (1742-1839); perhaps he had the opportunity to attend Albertolli's classes at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. Inlays with elegant, light, airy swirls, resembling luminous embroidery, always in maple laid on backgrounds of a recurring red wood. Gorla’s oeuvre is characterized by a preference for delicate leaves, fine borders, thin blades of grass, long strings of pearls.
For the pair of abovementioned chinoiserie commodes dated 1801, the ornamental layout of the sides and the front seem to have been inspired by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) and his wall decorations found in his Diverse maniere d'adornare i camini (plates 1-3, 55), giving Gorla’s works an unusual English feel. The connection with Albertolli is also confirmed by Gorla's passion for marquetry with harbor scenes: an ornamental technique found in Albertolli's decorations for the Villa Poggio Imperiale in Florence, where elegant Louis XVI stuccos frame marine paintings by Antonio Cioci.
This unpublished small oval table, although inserted in the neoclassical Milanese taste, is clearly influenced by Parisian models from the Louis XVI era, with sabots at the feet and an ormolu gallery to the top. Four reserves adorned with airy acanthus leaf swirls of pronounced Albertollian taste enclose the rectangular reserve with the beautiful seascape in natural and green-tinted woods, framed by an olive leaf border. The bands are decorated with inlays of leafy swirls and rosettes in maple on red background. The slender tapering legs, adorned with simple banding, are connected to the bands by a collar decorated with small swirls and a fine beading. Gorla must have executed this unprecedented work in the last decade of the eighteenth century, between the end of Habsburg rule and the arrival of Napoleon in Milan in 1796.
This table is an intriguing addition to the corpus of this still relatively unknown master, whose importance is destined to grow as studies on the history of Italian neoclassical furniture continue.
GIUSEPPE BERETTI
Furniture historian and restorer, author of numerous publications on Italian Neoclassical furniture, particularly on the ouvre of Giuseppe Maggiolini and his circle.