Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Venetian Rococo Console

Trocadero is offering this wonderful Venetian Rococo Console for $24.5K.

It has a marble top over a hand carved wood base with a laquered and parcel gilt finish. There is also a nice photo gallery of this piece - circa 1800.

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Monday, June 25, 2007

Venetian Rococo Furniture

Rococo styles first emerged in the early 18th century, characterized especially by love of shells (shell scrolls) - indeed, the word Rococo is seen as a combination of the French rocaille, or shell, and the Italian barocco, or Baroque style. It was lighter than preceding Baroque styles and by the middle of the 18th century was supplanted by Neoclassic styles.

Rococo pieces featured assymetry in ways new to Europe. Carvings often featured plant motifs, grotesques, masks, implements of various professions, badges, paintings, precious stones. The largest known pieces are confessionals, pulpits and altars, but many more pedestrian pieces are known, and are prized for their form.

Leading designers included Charles Cressent, Jean-Pierre Latz, François Oeben and Bernard II van Risenbergh.

Today among the most popular pieces are dressers, dining room sets (tables and chairs), consoles, commodes, and trumeaux. HM Luther has some wonderful antique consoles, and usually an example or two of venetian rococo consoles.

According to Old and Sold, Antique experts: Venetian furniture derived from the rococo examples of Louis XV forms, it was not a direct copy but apparently grew out of the demand of the frivolous life of the time, which asked for color, gayety, above all for novelty. Not only in the French styles and the native Italian precedents, but also in divergent sources, such as the English Queen Anne and the Spanish baroque styles, was inspiration sought.

Modern hand made furniture on these designs is custom made by artisans even today. The Rothschild Collection offers several newly hand made reproductions of Venetian Rococo furniture, such as this rococo bench and this venetian trumeau