A TASTE FOR THE ORIENT
During the XVIII century, all of Europe was attracted by the lure of the East and China in particular. Entire rooms in almost all the grand palaces and country residences were decorated with silk or rice paper wallpaper. This was produced in China for the western market and exported to London via the East India Company and from there all over Europe. Italy and Piedmont were no exception. In the mideighteenth century, Louis Victor of Savoy, Prince of Carignano turned part the Castle of Racconigi into the Chinese Apartment. The walls were entirely covered in wallpaper purchased in London in 1756, made from rice paper and painted with scenes of daily life in watercolours.
The Roero di Guarene archive (now a private collection) contains a receipt from the muleteer Andrea Viziano dated 10 June 1774 and attesting to the transport of some similar rolls of wallpaper in rice paper which arrived from London to Nice by sea and then continued by mule from Nice to the Castle of Guarene where it remains on the walls of the two Chinese rooms today.
The large mounted panel on auction (lot 207), from the late eighteenth century, has a similar decoration with riders and boats on the river and domestic scenes. Another two types of wallpaper in vogue in the eighteenth and nineteenth century were those decorated with birds and insects or floral patterns.
Equally popular at the time were Chinese lacquers and the Chinese Cabinet or the Room à la Chinoise at Turin’s Palazzo Reale is an one of the best examples of this trend. Architect Filippo Juvarra designed the carved and gilded boiserie which was inlaid with precious lacquers purchased by Juvarra himself in Rome in 1732 and integrated with some imitations by Piedmont artist Pietro Massa. This taste for the exotic pervaded the entire decoration, as shown for example, by the detailing on the top of a bureau Mazarin by the Piedmontese ebanist Giuseppe Maria Galbiati (private collection, photo courtesy of Roberto Antonetto) as well as the quantity of oriental majolica, porcelain, silvers and bronzes all imported from the Orient or produced à la Chinoise in the West.
One famous heir to this taste, which emerged between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and has been handed down the centuries until today thanks to the passion of patrons and collectors, is of course Luigi Anton Laura, a well-known and passionate scholar and antique dealer who over the course of 60 years has assembled an extraordinarily varied collection of almost 6000 pieces.
A selection of objects from the Orient or in the Oriental style stands out among these. His collection was donated to the FAI to ensure it stays together, along with Villa Laura on the Riviera di Ponente in Liguria which provides a home for it and represents a precious source of documentation for scholars of decorative arts.
The collection we are presenting at auction is also extremely varied and the result of the great passion of a well-known collector from Piedmont, as well as years of research and study. It ranges from China to Japan and from Thailand to Cambodia and Indonesia and represents a multifaceted and elegant vision of this western taste for the Orient.
by Umberta Boetti
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The Roero di Guarene archive (now a private collection) contains a receipt from the muleteer Andrea Viziano dated 10 June 1774 and attesting to the transport of some similar rolls of wallpaper in rice paper which arrived from London to Nice by sea and then continued by mule from Nice to the Castle of Guarene where it remains on the walls of the two Chinese rooms today.
The large mounted panel on auction (lot 207), from the late eighteenth century, has a similar decoration with riders and boats on the river and domestic scenes. Another two types of wallpaper in vogue in the eighteenth and nineteenth century were those decorated with birds and insects or floral patterns.
Equally popular at the time were Chinese lacquers and the Chinese Cabinet or the Room à la Chinoise at Turin’s Palazzo Reale is an one of the best examples of this trend. Architect Filippo Juvarra designed the carved and gilded boiserie which was inlaid with precious lacquers purchased by Juvarra himself in Rome in 1732 and integrated with some imitations by Piedmont artist Pietro Massa. This taste for the exotic pervaded the entire decoration, as shown for example, by the detailing on the top of a bureau Mazarin by the Piedmontese ebanist Giuseppe Maria Galbiati (private collection, photo courtesy of Roberto Antonetto) as well as the quantity of oriental majolica, porcelain, silvers and bronzes all imported from the Orient or produced à la Chinoise in the West.
One famous heir to this taste, which emerged between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and has been handed down the centuries until today thanks to the passion of patrons and collectors, is of course Luigi Anton Laura, a well-known and passionate scholar and antique dealer who over the course of 60 years has assembled an extraordinarily varied collection of almost 6000 pieces.
A selection of objects from the Orient or in the Oriental style stands out among these. His collection was donated to the FAI to ensure it stays together, along with Villa Laura on the Riviera di Ponente in Liguria which provides a home for it and represents a precious source of documentation for scholars of decorative arts.
The collection we are presenting at auction is also extremely varied and the result of the great passion of a well-known collector from Piedmont, as well as years of research and study. It ranges from China to Japan and from Thailand to Cambodia and Indonesia and represents a multifaceted and elegant vision of this western taste for the Orient.
by Umberta Boetti
BROWSE THE CATALOGUES