An outstanding table top in marmo e pietre dure, attributed Giacomo Raffaelli (1753-1836) attr. Roma circa 1790

The tabletop is executed in white statuary marble and displays a highly sophisticated inlaid design centred on a rectangular specimen panel composed of 120 oval hardstone plaques set against a
white ground and separated by black marble lozenges with concave sides.
The regular central composition is enclosed by a succession of stringing bands in giallo antico, black and white marble, interspersed with broader ornamental borders. The innermost border is composed of rectangular elements with lobed short sides in Broccatello di Spagna, alternating with elongated oval reserves of lapis lazuli. This is followed by a wider band of Broccatello di Spagna, while the outer border repeats the motif of the inner register. 

The wooden base is Irish, 19th century, Mahogany with string bordered inlaid panels of Amboyna. Made to carry the table top purchased in Italy during the grand tour. 

Provenance: Bishops House Newry, co Down from 1921 to present day, before that Gosford Castle, Armagh, sold from the castle in 1921.

Original receipt from 1921 in additional images along with Gosford Castle.

Dating and Comparative Analysis.
The table is distinguished by the rigour of its design, the refined selection of ornamental stones, and the exceptional quality of its execution. These characteristics closely relate it to a specimen table formerly belonging to the Grand Ducal collections of Florence and recorded among the furnishings of Palazzo Pitti in the inventory of 1791. The Palazzo Pitti table is larger in scale than the present example. Its composition centres on a specimen panel containing 120 oval hardstone samples, surrounded by a broad band of lozenges incorporating a collection of ancient marbles. Between the mouldings that define the central and outer registers runs a border composed of rectangular elements with lobed short sides in breccia semesanto, alternating with elongated oval reserves of lapis lazuli. The outer register is decorated with a black marble meander set against a white ground, while the edge is ornamented with a sequence of lozenges alternating with circular motifs. Despite its smaller dimensions, the present tabletop exhibits striking similarities to the Palazzo Pitti example. It reproduces the arrangement of the central specimen panel with oval hardstone plaques, the articulated framing system, and the characteristic border composed of rectangular elements with lobed short sides in breccia semesanto alternating with elongated oval sections of lapis lazuli. In both works, moreover, the thickness of the tabletop is also decorated with inlaid ornament, a relatively uncommon feature that strongly suggests a common
workshop origin, if not the hand of the same craftsman.

At present, no other specimen tables based on this specific compositional scheme are known. Significantly, however, the same 1791 Palazzo Pitti inventory records a second table of closely related design, evidently conceived as a pendant to the exhisting example, whose current whereabouts remain unknown. Although the whereabouts of this companion piece are presently unknown, its existence demonstrates that this highly distinctive typology was produced in more than one example.

Attribution
The relationship between the Gosford table and the Palazzo Pitti example extends far beyond a generic resemblance in overall appearance. What is particularly striking is the convergence of a series of highly specific features that recur in both works. These include the identical number of hardstone specimens (120), their oval format and arrangement, the articulated system of framing borders, the use of elongated lapis lazuli reserves, the distinctive rectangular elements with lobed or concave short sides, and the unusual decision to continue the inlaid decoration along the thickness of the tabletop itself. Considered individually, any one of these characteristics might be dismissed as coincidental or attributable to broadly shared decorative conventions. Taken together, however, they form a coherent and highly distinctive design vocabulary that is unlikely to have arisen independently. This correspondence cannot readily be explained as a simple decorative preference and instead suggests the existence of a carefully conceived compositional model deriving from a workshop design or prototype. Taken as a whole, this body of evidence points to a common artistic and technical context for the Gosford and Palazzo Pitti tables. While definitive attribution must await further documentary discoveries, the remarkable correspondence in both design and conception provides one of the strongest arguments for associating the Gosford table with the Roman lapidary milieu active at the end of the eighteenth century and, more specifically, with the studio of Giacomo Raffaelli.

Giacomo Raffaelli (1753–1836)

Giacomo Raffaelli, heir to a family tradition of glassmaking that can be traced back to the mid-seventeenth century, achieved exceptional renown as a mosaicist and was celebrated by contemporary sources for his ability to apply the technique of micromosaic to objets de vertu, including boxes, plaques, and jewellery. By 1775, he had already gained considerable fame for his highly complex micromosaic compositions, executed with extraordinarily fine enamel tesserae drawn from glass filaments, an innovation made possible through the experiments of the chemist Alessio Mattioli. During the last three decades of the eighteenth century, his workshop in San Sebastianello, near Piazza di Spagna in Rome, became an essential destination on the Grand Tour for European aristocrats, who were captivated by the refined creations of this master of Roman micromosaic. While Raffaelli’s pioneering achievements in mosaic secured him an
international reputation, he simultaneously developed a profound interest in the mineral world, and his talents as a lapidary artist soon became equally celebrated. His reputation extended far beyond Rome and even beyond the Italian peninsula. In 1787, King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski of Poland granted him a patent of nobility and appointed him artistic adviser. In 1804, the Napoleonic government summoned him to Milan to establish a school of Roman mosaic. He remained there with his family until 1820, following the completion of his micromosaic masterpiece: the life-size copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, which was transported to Vienna—where it remains today in the Minoritenkirche—by a convoy of more than one hundred carts. Upon his return to Rome, Giacomo continued his activities together with his son Vincenzo in a new residence and workshop on Via del Babuino, housed in a building restored by Giuseppe Valadier. There he finally realised his ambition of creating a large opificio devoted to lapidary works, within which he installed his Museum of Natural History in a specially designed cabinet. The design of this cabinet, together with the inventory of its stone collections, survives today in the Raffaelli Archive at the Fondazione Negro in Rome. The collection of marmora romana and hardstones assembled throughout his lifetime exceeded two thousand specimens, meticulously recorded in the 1821 inventory of the materials transported from Milan to Rome. The mineralogical variety accumulated by Raffaelli rivalled that of the most important lapidary collections of the nineteenth century. Throughout his career, discerning foreign patrons sought to acquire his elaborate compositions in hardstone and micromosaic. Today, examples of his work are preserved in numerous public and private collections. In Britain, they can be found at Temple Newsam, Burton Constable Hall, Syon House, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, including works from the Gilbert Collection. Further examples are held in the Spanish Royal Collections at the Prado Museum, Madrid; in the former Russian Imperial Collections at the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg; at the Royal Palace of Milan; and at the Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco. A.M.Massinelli, with contributions of M. Alfieri, L. Biancini, E. Yakovleva, G. Tassinari, Giacomo Raffaelli (1753-1836), Maestro di stile e di mosaico, Florence, 2018 A. M. Massinelli, « Roman “Lapidarymania” and the Raffaelli Dynasty », Furniture History Society, 60, 2024

Gosford Castle

Gosford Castle is a 19th-century country house situated in Gosford, a townland of Markethill, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It was built for Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford, and designed in the Norman revival style by London architect Thomas Hopper. It is a Grade A listed building, and is said to be Ulster’s largest. The Earls of Gosford occupied the castle until 1921, and the estate was later purchased by the Ministry of Agriculture to form Gosford Forest Park.

The Acheson family were granted land in County Armagh by King James VI & I in 1610, at the start of the Plantation of Ulster. They established the village of Markethill and built a castle, though this was destroyed during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. A manor house was built in its place, which the Achesons occupied until 1840. The writer Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) visited Gosford and contributed to the layout of the gardens. In 1819, The 2nd Earl of Gosford (1776–1849), then head of the Acheson dynasty, commissioned Thomas Hopper (1776–1856) to design a new house at Gosford. A Norman revival style of architecture was chosen, marking Hopper’s first attempt at this style that he would go on to perfect at Penrhyn Castle in Wales. Hopper was assisted by local architect Thomas Duff. In 1837 the building was reported as unfinished, and was not fully complete until 1859 when Hopper’s assistant George Adam Burn rebuilt the entrance front.

Research and report by ‘Anna Maria Massoinelli’.

Anna Maria Massinelli is an Italian art historian specializing in European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. She has written many books on decorative marble/Pietre Dura, including the book ‘Giacomo Raffaelli’.