Description/    

This unique cabinet in two parts forms a credenza in its lower part. The base consists of a background decorated with three rectangular molded panels. The shelf rests on two armored and winged lions carved in encrusted enamel. Their massive limbs are as impressive as their mouths, which seem to be more like dragons than those of lions. The quality of the sculpture is evident in the representation of hairs, scales that cover their chests and the extremely muscular necklines. The upper part of the credenza consists of two panels alternating with three women depicted in the bust and ending with a sheath and a sculpted wreath of acanthus leaves. Both panels are entirely sculpted: fantastic architecture, including putti with bulging muscles and supported by two griffins, featuring a medallion sculpted with a trophy of arms. The two panels meet symmetrically while the backings of the piece are also decorated with sculpted panels with motifs of arms trophies. The entablature has a frieze of festoons alternating with masks and encircled by shell motifs. Each sculpted panel has a texturized bottom, which increases the relief of the sculpted motifs and plays with the light on the prominent parts. Each surface of this cabinet is covered with carvings, in a kind of horror of the clean emptiness in the interiors of the 19th century. The shape, inspired by the two-pieced cabinets of the Renaissance, has an affirmed architectural structure associated with an abundance of sculptures of dazzling skill. There is a real attention to woodworking, which offers stunning carved designs through their quantity and quality of execution. In the nineteenth century in Europe, production of manufactured goods underwent an unprecedented growth: the decorative arts become the "applied arts industry." Production of decorative arts in the second half of the nineteenth century faced dilemma: how to reconcile art with the appearance, around 1850, of mechanization and industrialization? How to reconcile traditional craftsmanship and mass production? Some, like the Guggenheim in Venice, were convinced that an alliance was possible, even necessary, between art and industry. It was necessary to reflect on the ways to produce artworks of extraordinary quality and that would still be able to profit from the possibilities offered by the evermore efficient technical means. In many factories, this was demonstrated by the collaboration between artists and manufacturers. In Stabilimento Arti Decorative e Industriali, Guggenheim himself occupied all these positions: antiques buff, he had built a personal culture second to none and used his library and his personal collection of artwork as a repertoire of designs that needed to by studied and understood.. This was characteristic of the time, which held the conviction that the renewal of decorative arts was inseparable from the study of historical styles. The direct inspiration of these past decors shows a great passion for history, quite representative of Guggenheim.

In Venice at the end of the 19th century, Michelangelo Guggenheim was a well-known figure: antiquarian, collector, maker of artistic furniture and active participant in the public life of the city. Present in committees of numerous exhibitions, he was named Academic of merit by the Royal Academy of Beaux-Arts, corresponding with the University of Venice, Commander of the Crown of Italy and Knight of the order of the saints Maurice and Lazare.

He occupied a particularly important place as a protagonist of the debate on the reorganization of the Correr Museum, around the years 1880 -1890.

Moïse Michelangelo Guggenheim was born in Venice the 17 November 1837. His father, Samuel Guggenheim, and his mother, Sara Dettelbach, natives of the Duchy of Baden, arrived in Venise during the 1820s. Very quickly, they dedicated themselves to the collection and selling of artwork, improving their knowledge of decorative arts, at a time when, in most European countries, the question of the relationship between the arts and industry was an object of fierce debate. Overtaking their business, Michelangelo Guggenheim made himself the voice for the need to favor the development of arts applied to industry, foreseeing the future economic possibilities in it. He founded, in 1857, a “ Stabilimento d’arti decorative e industriali,” specialized in the production of prestigious furniture pieces. Sole owner, he was also the artistic director and designer of all the works. He was from the beginning for a new expressive language, but attracted constantly toward the old models, which led him to a reinterpretation of traditional styles. Likewise, he was regularly called to make the complete furnishing of interiors, adopting a large variety of styles. The production of sculpted furniture pieces, of bronzes and of stone works by Stabilimento Guggenheim, very influenced by the passed design language, responded to the popular taste both in Italy and abroad. His works, notably his furniture, were presented at the 1873 World Exhibition in Vienna, as well as those in Milan in 1881, Venice in 1887 and Paris in 1889. In terms of the production of artistic furniture pieces in Venice, Guggenheim was the most active designer of the time and the initiator of the revival of applied arts to the industry. At a difficult time for the furniture industry, he succeeded in founding this factory of artistic furniture pieces and exporting them at an international level, to America, Austria, France, Germany and England. Produced in Venice, they could be admired and sold at the highest prices in the large Parisian stores like Printemps. Guggenheim’s factory, active until 1910, established its headquarters, from 1879, in the Balbi Palace where a permanent exhibition of products by the maker of art works and antiques was presented. In 1885, Guggenheim published an opuscule where he gave precise descriptions about his work. Therefore one knows that at this time he possessed, “three large workshops, each with about thirty employees, artists and workers, [the] number increased in case of important orders,” notably for the monarchs or important households. Among all the prestigious orders he received from ruling houses and individual rich, a very special interest was brought to the Palazzo Papadopoli, completely restored between 1874 and 1881. There, Guggenheim used the decorative language of several different periods from the Italian Renaissance to the periods of Louis XIV to Louis XVI, while furnishing each room in a well-established style. A few years later, in 1899, an album describing this work was published. The operation was considered so exceptional that the Kingdom of Bavaria, personally from King Louis II, gave Guggenheim the Gold Medal of Merit for Science and the Arts. Alongside his work of industrial art furniture and as a decorator, Guggenheim inherited from his parents, who were antiquarians and collectors, works of antique art. He was thus one of the most important antiquarians of Venice. He sold jugs, rugs and chandeliers as well as paintings and sculptures. Beyond his commercial interests, he developed a real understanding of these objects that had not only an aesthetic or documentary value, but would become models of inspiration for modern production. A specialist in decorative arts, Guggenheim had a large library, considered the largest of its kind in Italy that included the best of Italian and foreign publications devoted to decorative and industrial arts. He also devoted himself to the publication of art books. These many activities did not prevent Guggenheim to gain interest in the proceedings of the City and respond with articles on the restoration of monuments, industrial and artistic development as well as education.