The structure is poplar and walnut, and the veneering is of palisander and kingwood, inlaid with ivory, mother of pearl, ebony and brass. The form resembles a Mazarin desk but with six curved instead of eight pillar-shaped legs. This design is to be found in the two desks by Piffetti in the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor,¹ another by an unknown hand with Augsburg marquetry in the same collection, and a similar item in the apartments of the Basilica di Superga. Surprisingly, the legs are not in one piece with the uprights but attached with large nails (of the period). Curved at the front and the sides, the desk presents decoration based on a combination of rocailles and flowers with an abundance of brass ribbons. The legs end in an outward curl at the bottom. 

Four panels of engraved ivory show putti intent on making arrows for Cupid. The one on the top shows six cherubs forging arrowheads, which are then sharpened on a grinding wheel by a cherub in the scene on the door. The panel on the right shows two cherubs with axes and a saw cutting logs and the one on the left the arrow shafts being made. 

The scenes are the same as those found on three pieces of furniture by Piffetti belonging to the Museo Accorsi- Ometto in Turin. 

The image of putti forging metal on the top of the Cerruti desk is a combination of the two on the sides of the lower section of the great and famous secretary desk by Piffetti signed and dated 1738. The three cherubs on the left are the same as those on the right side of the Accorsi desk and the three on the right correspond to those on the left side (fig. 1). As mentioned elsewhere, the combination of isolated images drawn from prints was standard practice for Piffetti. 

The scenes on the door and the sides of the Cerruti desk are the same as those in three of the four medallions of the Piffetti wall cupboards acquired by the Museo Accorsi-Ometto through the Volpi Ottolini donation of 2009. They are drawn from Charles Plumier’s L’Art de tourner en perfection, published in Lyon in 1701 (fig. 2).² 

The use of the same matrices for the two desks obviously does not mean that the images are absolutely identical or, above all, that they are by the same hand. Two different engravers are involved in this case. 

As regards the original prints, it is easy to identify the source of the medallions of the Accorsi wall cupboards, and hence of the door and sides of the Cerruti desk, as the engraving on page 1 of the above-mentioned volume by Plumier (fig. 3). 

No success has yet been achieved in the search for the direct iconographic source of the cherubs on the top of the desk, which can also be found on the lid of the toilette casket signed and dated “Petrus Piffetti fecit et schulpi Taurini 1738” in the Reggia di Venaria. The motif of putti forging metal, which dates back to Pompeii, also appears in an engraving by Charles Augustin Duflos (1715-86), namely Le Feu after François Boucher (London, British Museum), and in one by Louis Desplaces (1682-1739) after Charles- Antoine Coypel (1694-1752) in the municipal library of Valenciennes. Cherub smiths are also found in one of the decorative compositions in Berain’s Ornemens. None of these can be identified as Piffetti’s direct source.³ As stated above, brass is used very lavishly in the Cerruti desk, far more abundantly than in any other work with this metal by the royal cabinetmaker, such as the prie-dieu in Palazzo Reale and a Stupinigi prayer stool.⁴ In the desk, it is applied in broad strips that flatten the volutes and deprive them of the three-dimensionality conferred by the shadowing of the lines incised in the ivory. The panel on the top is somewhat anomalous in size with respect to Piffetti’s normal proportional relations between cartouche and wooden ground. 

It is precisely on the top that we find awkward alterations made to the desk, namely the sunburst lattice occupying the panel, a sort of deranged trellis or sketchy coffered ceiling defacing what was certainly an ebony sky originally identical to the other panels. The insert in maple wood is not only senseless but also crude and cannot conceivably be attributed to Piffetti’s workshop or even the clumsiest of his apprentices. It should also be noted the no fewer than twenty-four of the small squares formed by the lattice are no longer ebony but walnut. 

The article is further marred by the insertion of dozens of small nails in the elements of brass and ivory to prevent them from becoming detached and by incorrect cleaning in the past, which has caused extensive yellowing of the ivory and green stains spreading out from the brass. 

Restoration in the workshop of Gherardo Franchino has salvaged the original tonalities of the various materials and revealed the fine quality of the ivory engraving. On the whole, the desk has regained a lustre that is appealing to the eye. 

In conclusion, it can be stated that the desk was certainly produced in Piffetti’s workshop, as demonstrated by the use of the figurative material illustrated above. 

Roberto Antonetto 

¹ De Bellaigue 1974, pp. 566-573; Antonetto 2010, vol. I, pp. 193-195. 

² La donazione Volpi Ottolini per la Fondazione Pietro Accorsi 2009; Antonetto 2010, vol. I, pp. 174-179; A. Tosa in Venaria Reale 2018, pp. 223-224. 

³ Attention can be drawn in this connection to the cherub carpenters in plate 50 of the first volume of André- Jacob Roubo, Paris 1769 (Berthault sculp.). 

⁴ The images are in Antonetto 2010, vol. I, pp. 169- 174. Brass is also used for ribbons and friezes by Prinotto in a desk in a private collection, see Ibid., pp. 89-95.