A fine pair of 18th century giltwood tables with statuary marble and scagliola ‘Bossi work’ tops

The statuary Carrara marble tops are demi-lune in shape, and inlaid with colourful scagliola to form an eye-pleasing symmetrical, neo-classical design. Featuring a centre urn/tazza on a tall pedestal with hanging pendant below the bowl, elaborate garlands of foliage and a Sienna border. 

The carved wooded bases with two front tapering supports, decorated with acorns and descending husks, the curved frieze with swags of bell-flowers and patera flowers. Each table retaining its original gilding.

Pietro Bossi

Pietro Bossi was an elite 18th-century Italian stone craftsman, designer, and stuccadore who became famous for his masterful Neoclassical inlaid marble fireplaces and table tops in Dublin, Ireland. Documented as being active in Ireland between 1784 and 1798, his unique technique of embedding coloured paste into white statuary marble grounds became a benchmark of Irish decorative arts, popularly known today as “Bossi-work” or “Bossi-inlay”.

Pietro Bossi, who may have been a member of a family of stucco workers named Bossi in the neighbourhood of Como, Northern Italy, had arrived in Dublin by 1784.  Best known for his inlaid marble mantelpieces, in 1796 he submitted an estimate to the second Earl of Aldborough for plastering and stucco work for Aldborough House, Dublin.  He is also said to have made several mantelpieces for the house, which were removed by Robert Cochrane on behalf of the Commissioners of Public Works in 1898.

The date and place of Pietro Bossi’s death is not known.   He may have married in Ireland; the christening of Maria Teresa Bossi, daughter of Peter and Sarah Bossi of Fleet Street, Dublin, on 5 July 1795 is recorded in the registers of St Marks’ Church of Ireland church.

His workshop address:  22 Fleet Street, 1785-1786; 38 Fleet Street, 1787-1798.