The curved door bears a winged putto in the centre of plant motifs branching out in large volutes, garlands and a string of beads on a light-green ground inside a cream-coloured lesbian leaf moulding and frame. A large ribbon twisted into a succession of oval loops runs across the panel beneath the top and the pilasters bear studs and laurel pendants. Each of the three cylindrical legs has a tapering fluted shaft between juxtaposed foliate cups and is joined to the pilaster by a slender neck. 

It is impossible to put forward any serious attribution at present. Though customary, it is not quite correct to speak in this and other similar cases of the “circle of Bonzanigo”, which suggests minor figures who imitate the master’s style but not at such a level as to justify attribution to him. In actual fact, the Turinese world of late 18th-century woodcarving is full of many skilled craftsmen of comparable stature and anything but unmistakeable individuality. The records of the Royal House for about thirty Turinese cabinetmakers of the Neoclassical period¹ include twenty-eight corner cupboards of which only four by Bonzanigo and eight by Bolgiè. We do not therefore have a sufficient number of reliable models. 

See in this connection the observations put forward in the description of a commode attributed to Francesco Bolgiè (cat. p. 1000). 

The Museo Accorsi-Ometto in Turin holds a very similar pair of corner cupboards with parts painted red and tops of red Verona marble (inv. no. M 1048-1049).² 

Roberto Antonetto 

¹ Ferraris 1991, “Quadro riassuntivo” on p. 197. 

² One of the Museo Accorsi-Ometto pair is published in Turin 1963a, vol. III, fig. 246a.