1790~ / 1800~, Sicily

1790~ / 1800~, Sicily

Identifier
1992.173.1
Transfer of custody
Victoria and Albert Museum
Acquisition
Gift of John P. Richardson, 1992
Collection
Technique
Depiction
Production time
Production place
Type of object

Description

This settee is from a large set of seat furniture, which included at least four settees and twenty side chairs. It was formerly thought to have been commissioned for the Villa Palagonia at Bagheria near Palermo, but the provenance remains undocumented, and the initials in the cipher at the center of the back, "PPL," are as yet unidentified. The reverse-painted glass panels in imitation of agate, lapis, and marble are a distinctive feature often used on late-eighteenth-century Neoclassical Sicilian furniture.