This painting and its counterpart were conceived to offer an entire view of the Gulf of Naples. In the foreground they present the parade of the royal procession which was held on 8 September each year along the Riviera di Chiaia towards the church of Santa Maria di Piedigrotta. It was a grandiose military parade, in which among the wings of a cheering crowd, the royal carriages and the entire court paraded against the suggestive background of the Bay of Naples, creating a spectacle of incomparable beauty, of which numerous figurative testimonies remain. The artist who best grasped this extraordinary synthesis of history and nature was Antonio Joli from Modena (circa 1700-1777). Heir to Gaspar van Wittel's lucid Enlightenment landscape painting, Joli enriched and personalized his own language through long stays in the main European capitals, where he made himself appreciated as a scenographer and landscape painter, finally reaching, precisely in Naples, the culmination of a long and successful career. Inside the royal carriage, represented in the first of the two paintings, the figure of the child king Ferdinand IV is clearly recognizable, ascended to the throne in 1759, at the age of eight, following the abdication of his father, Charles of Bourbon, who he had inherited the crown of Spain. Since, however, the latter is still represented next to his son, the parade, in which both sovereigns exceptionally participated, must be that of 8 September 1759, which was immediately held the coronation of Ferdinand and shortly before the departure of Charles for Spain.

This painting and its counterpart were conceived to offer an entire view of the Gulf of Naples. In the foreground they present the parade of the royal procession which was held on 8 September each year along the Riviera di Chiaia towards the church of Santa Maria di Piedigrotta. It was a grandiose military parade, in which among the wings of a cheering crowd, the royal carriages and the entire court paraded against the suggestive background of the Bay of Naples, creating a spectacle of incomparable beauty, of which numerous figurative testimonies remain. The artist who best grasped this extraordinary synthesis of history and nature was Antonio Joli from Modena (circa 1700-1777). Heir to Gaspar van Wittel's lucid Enlightenment landscape painting, Joli enriched and personalized his own language through long stays in the main European capitals, where he made himself appreciated as a scenographer and landscape painter, finally reaching, precisely in Naples, the culmination of a long and successful career. Inside the royal carriage, represented in the first of the two paintings, the figure of the child king Ferdinand IV is clearly recognizable, ascended to the throne in 1759, at the age of eight, following the abdication of his father, Charles of Bourbon, who he had inherited the crown of Spain. Since, however, the latter is still represented next to his son, the parade, in which both sovereigns exceptionally participated, must be that of 8 September 1759, which was immediately held the coronation of Ferdinand and shortly before the departure of Charles for Spain.

Louise Loy Smart (1810-1888), sister of Guglielmo Coronini's maternal great-grandmother, Elisabetta, was born in Trieste and was the daughter of Giuseppe Loy and Giustina Pittoni de Dannenfels. From the marriage with Thomas Smart (1789-1869), celebrated in 1827, Luisa had eight children, two boys and six girls, of whom four died prematurely and only two lived to an old age, Guglielmina (1827-1906) and Ada (1837 -1912). The portrait inherited to the Coroninis in 1912, on the death of Ada, the last of the Smart family, can be dated between 1850 and 1855, as suggested by both the age of the woman, already mature but not yet faded, and the characters of the dress that, according to mid-century fashion, gains breadth with the crinoline and corrects the severity of black with the flirtatious touch of the soft lace underarms and the light profile accompanying the neckline. Even if it were not signed, the painting would immediately make one think of Antonio Zona, a portraitist characterized precisely by the ability to emphasize the sweetness of soul that Louise Loy expresses and, in general, good feelings. Born in Gambarare di Mira in 1814 and trained at the Venice Academy, he had contact with Trieste from the very beginning. His painting is the result of a great technical preparation gained in a context of profound transformations and harsh confrontations between conservators and realists. In the end he remained faithful to a late-romantic vision, respectful of the great tradition and attentive to the motions of the heart. Languid and sometimes sweetish poses easily meet the taste of the public and, although he, in many respects, appears to be a follower of Hayez, he is unable to match him in the expressive power of his portraits.

The repainting depicting Louis Durfort-Duras, Earl of Feversham, was probably executed around 1685, when the figure depicted, in the service of James II, achieved his greatest military success with the victory over the Duke of Monmouth. On that occasion he was compensated with the conferral of a prestigious honor, the Order of the Garter, to which the blue band on the chest could allude. Although known by other contemporary portraitists, John Riley (1646-1691) was one of the few English artists who was able to establish himself in this field, usually dominated by foreign painters, managing to establish himself with an aristocratic commission and at the same court. Nonetheless, his works lack the pomp, emphasis and ostentation that usually characterized the parade portrait at the time, rather giving space to the physiognomic and psychological rendering of the faces.

The two tablets, painted on both sides, formed the side doors of a small triptych that probably presented an Adoration of the Magi in the central panel that was not received. This theme, of which the two biblical episodes on the panels were considered a prefiguration, was in fact very popular in the merchant city of Antwerp, where in the first decades of the sixteenth century a group of artists, mostly anonymous, developed a particular pictorial style, called "Mannerism of Antwerp", characterized by crowded compositions, by figures in elegant and artificial poses dressed in elaborate exotic clothes, by the use of bright and iridescent colors, by a bizarre mixture, in the architecture, of late Gothic elements and of Renaissance motifs. This original language is emphasized by the technical virtuosity of Flemish painting, particularly effective in the realistic rendering of fabrics, furs, feathers, metals and jewels. On the back are depicted Saint Gertrude of Nivelles and Saint Hadrian of Nicomedia.

The print belongs to the series "Fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō", created by Hiroshige between 1833 and 1834. The work represents a detailed "travel diary" in images along the coastal road of Tōkaidō, the most important of the time, desired by Tokugawa Yeyasu, the first shogun of the feudal government. The road, over five hundred kilometers long, connected Edo, the current Tokyo seat of the new government to Kyōto, the ancient capital where the emperor still resided. The stations were places where one had to stop and show one's pass, and where travelers found hotels, horses, freight transporters, ferrymen, crowbars. Among the prints of the series, which had a resounding success, the one representing the Night Snow in Kambara is considered a masterpiece among the representations of snowy landscapes.

Jan Saenredam drew this burin from a drawing by Hendrick Goltzius. The training in the workshop of the well-known master from Haarlem, which took place around the years 1589-1590, allowed him to develop an engraving technique declined to virtuosity, becoming his most gifted pupil. The press in question represents "the mess that Camillo makes, while Brenno weighs the gold". The figure of Marco Furio Camillo is highlighted, who arrived on horseback in time to save the honor of Rome during the siege of the Gauls commanded by Brenno; he holds the sword in his hand, ready to place it on the scales to raise the price of the gold ransom imposed on the Romans, according to the story made by the historian Titus Livy. The horizontal development of the scene and the isocephaly refer to the ancient friezes, proposing a classical scheme. It is evident, from the inversion of the letters "G" and "L" on the insignia that appear in the engraving, that the image is a counterpart to the lost design of Goltzius. The virtuosity of Saenredam is evident in the excellence of the results achieved in this engraving test. The modeling of shapes through planes of light and shadow reveals the artist's intent to achieve marble relief effects through the burin.

The print according to Ridolfi derives from the composition depicting "the Virgin Mary with Saint Anne, which he [Tizaino] painted in chiaroscuro over the tomb of Luigi Trevisano in S. Giovanni e Paolo". However, as Mariette noted, the drawing used for the printing could not be the same intended for the painting, a lunette where neither the figure of St. Joseph nor the two angels appeared, instead of which two Dominican friars were seen. No trace remains of the Titianesque work, originally placed above the tomb and already severely damaged in the eighteenth century to the point that, as Zanetti pointed out, it had been placed in a room of the convent. The work belongs to the last phase of Titian's relationship with woodcut, when instead of original inventions, specially conceived for printing, the artist limited himself to passing the drawings and preparatory studies of his paintings to the carvers, which were then reworked and adapted to the engraving. Third state out of three. Inscriptions: On the reverse, handwritten note in pencil: "Gravure au bois de la main de Titien".

After a debut as an author of miniatures, the Venetian painter Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757) quickly established herself on the European scene with her delicate and elegant pastel portraits that soon made her one of the most influential, famous and sought-after artistic personalities of Europe. Thanks to her, the pastel technique returned to great fashion, lending itself with its soft tones to render the graceful grace typical of the Rococo taste. Sacred subjects are not particularly numerous in his production. A slightly larger version of the same Madonna is kept in Venice, in one of the rooms of Palazzo Mocenigo. The painting that belonged to Mathilde Coronini, who had inherited it from her maternal aunt Pauline de Sampigny, was left to Carolina Ritter, wife of Alfredo Coronini, who in turn assigned it to her daughter Carmen. On the latter's death in 1968, in the absence of direct heirs, all her possessions, including the painting by Rosalba Carriera, passed to her nephew Guglielmo Coronini.

The almost photographic realism of the painting, together with the careful physiognomic characterization of the characters are typical traits of the language of Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793-1865). One of the most popular artists of his time, he was able to grasp the indications of that bourgeois Biedermeier taste in painting, widely spread in German-speaking countries at the turn of the mid-nineteenth century. In addition to the refined and vast production of portraits, the Viennese artist also specialized in landscapes of rare luministic sensitivity and genre scenes, similar to that of this painting which shows a young woman with her three children seeking shelter from a storm at a small country altar. The painting originally belonged to the Sartorio di Trieste collections and was inherited by Count Guglielmo Coronini in 1946, thanks to a bequest from the last descendant of the Trieste family, Anna Segrè Sartorio.

As documented by a series of letters, the attribution to Giuseppe Ceracchi of the marble bust depicting a young Napoleon Bonaparte matured starting in the early 1960s, thanks to the research carried out personally by Count Guglielmo Coronini, to his contacts with the Amarican scholar Ulysse Desportes and compared with a print of the English engraver Henry Richter, dated 1801, where the following inscription appears: “engraved […] from the celebrated Bust by Ceracchi lately brougth from Paris and now in his Possession”. The print, of which the count had a photograph preserved together with the aforementioned correspondence, actually shows a work very similar to the Coronini bust, with the only difference that, as Guglielmo himself pointed out, the one worn by Napoleon is the crossed tunic by Marengo and of the first consulate, and not the straight one of the first campaign in Italy depicted in the Gorizia specimen, therefore datable to 1796-1797. Although Desportes had never expressed himself clearly for the attribution to Ceracchi, it was thanks to his reports that on the occasion of the monographic exhibition organized in 1989 at the Palazzo dei conservatori in Rome, Count Coronini was contacted by the curators who asked for a loan of the work. , confirming the Roman artist's autograph. The hypothesis is that the Gorizia specimen is actually the one depicted in Richter's print and that it was made immediately after the sculptor's first meeting with Bonaparte, which took place in Paris at the beginning of 1796. At the time Ceracchi was already a well-known artist and claimed that he had worked all over Europe and the United States, but that he had also made himself known for his democratic and Jacobin ideas. A supporter of the Italian Campaign, he became one of the most listened to advisers of the young general, who wanted him with him in Milan. Here Ceracchi painted a stately old-fashioned portrait for Napoleon, very distant, in spirit and setting, from the Coronini one. In fact, everyone agrees in recognizing that the Gorizia bust was certainly made from life, since, as Count Guglielmo himself underlines, "the sickly and tired expression and the irregularities and asymmetries of the face" make the image far from any idealization and any attempt at heroic emphasis.

Initiated to a diplomatic career, Michele Coronini in the years immediately following his marriage to Sophie de Fagan, celebrated in Paris in 1812, was often on mission abroad. Between 1815 and 1816, he stayed for a few months in Naples, and during the return trip he certainly made a stop in Rome for at least two weeks. It was on this occasion that he had the opportunity to commission his portrait to the Danish artist Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), considered, together with Antonio Canova, one of the most important interpreters of the neoclassical taste. The dating of the work is in fact confirmed in the plaster model which is kept at the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen and which bears the inscription "Rome 1816".

The refined decoration of these cylindrical goblets, slightly flared upwards, is obtained from the contrast between the two bands with a perfectly smooth and polished surface, at the base and the upper edge, and the central part of the body, richly decorated with plant racemes and volutes in nielloed silver that stand out against a rough golden background, created through dense chisel patterning. Moscow was one of the major production centers of niellated objects as confirmed by the provenance of the two glasses in question, made by a silversmith whose name has not been handed down, but whose initials "AK" are found on numerous objects produced between 1835 and 1849 which show precise executive and decorative affinities with the two Coronini pieces. The niello, an ancient technique which consists in filling the grooves engraved on a metal surface with a dark colored mixture, composed of silver, copper, lead and sulfur in variable proportions, was widely used by Russian goldsmiths and silversmiths since the tenth century, giving life to a tradition that reached its apogee in the sixteenth century, but which still continued to express itself in works of great originality in the nineteenth century.

The precious cameo brooch was made by the goldsmith Andreas Ferdinand Spiegel, active in St. Petersburg between 1830 and 1862, also known for being the teacher of Gustave Fabergé, Carl's father. Rediscovered and collected already during the eighteenth century, ancient cameos began to be used in jewelry during the Napoleonic era. In the same period, especially in Rome and Naples, where the tradition of carving shells and semi-precious stones had survived through the centuries, a production of modern cameos took on new vigor and continued with unaltered fortune throughout the century. The beauty and refinement of the sardonyx cameo, which depicts a very widespread ancient subject, the head of Minerva with her splendid helmet, led Dora Liscia Bemporad to recognize the hand of a level artist, such as the famous engraver Benedetto Pistrucci, or one of his many followers.

The clock bears no signature, but the extraordinary figures that allude to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, let us see the work of an artist of the highest quality, whose talents emerge in the suggestive and theatrical flourishes of the clothes and in the skill with which they are rendered. the details of the armor. The movement, with hour chime, is of the type called "Paris", which remained in use with minimal variations from the end of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, thanks to industrial series production. From some documents found in the Coronini Archive we know that the clock, together with the two candlesticks that perhaps completed the whole, was part of the assets that Sophie de Fagan inherited in 1826 from her mother, who died in Paris. The clock and the candlesticks were embarked in Calais and reached Trieste by sea. The wooden base on which the clock rests is original and on it, as indicated by the groove, a glass bell was inserted which was broken during the journey. Sophie left the clock to her daughter Mathilde, who in turn gave it to the wife of her nephew Alfredo, Carolina Ritter de Zàhony.

In some documents the two pieces are mentioned as "Coffee Brico (700) with wooden handle / Punzoni R surmounted by a pine cone (Augusta) ICE / Brico da latte (idem)". In others, however, they are cited in a more generic way. What the Coronini had identified as a milk jug could be considered, on the other hand, a selfish coffee pot, destined to contain the drink for one service only. Thanks to the interpretation of the punches, it is possible to trace the city, the production workshop and the relative period: the "pine cone surmounted by the letter R" indicates the city of Augusta and the period from 1765 to 1767; the initials "ICE" are those that reveal the Protestant silversmith Johann Christoph Engelbrecht. The decorative type, pyriform, with a torsional pattern, with a short spout, wooden handle, dome lid with three-dimensional grip, is very recurrent, not only in Germany but throughout the European continent. It is not excluded that these two pieces have been retouched and restored over time. In the lower part there are several traces of chiselling.

These splendid salt cellars bear the stamp of Martin-Guillaume Biennais (1764-1843), one of the most famous French silversmiths of his time, official supplier of Napoleon Bonaparte and his court. Arriving in Paris in 1789, Biennais began his career as a cabinetmaker in a workshop located in Rue Saint-Honoré, bearing the sign of the Purple Monkey (Singe Violet), destined to remain his characteristic trademark. Following the abolition of the guilds imposed by the revolutionary laws of 1791 and 1797, which allowed anyone to take up the profession, Biennais decided to devote himself to silverware, initially producing small objects, such as toiletry sets and travel bags, and placing the foundations of a thriving business which, at the height of his success, would have led him to employ as many as six hundred people. The oval bowls in cut crystal, supported by winged sphinxes with a single leg, echo in a surprising way the salt shakers belonging to the great service in gilded silver performed by Biennais on the occasion of the wedding between Napoleon and Maria Luisa of Austria, commission documented by a payment dated 27 August 1810. As we can also observe in the two Coronini salt cellars, the objects produced by Biennais usually present sober shapes, inspired by the ancient, whose elegant functionality is not suffocated, but rather enhanced, by the refined decorations that are arranged on the architecture of the piece without compromising the perfect compositional balance.

The archive data does not report useful information for identifying the origin of the two objects, but the punches provide some more information. The Ljubljana provenance, indicated by the punches, however, allows us to formulate some interesting hypotheses: we cannot exclude that the two objects, probably forming part of a larger service, belonged to Giovanni Filippo Cobenzl (Ljubljana, 1741 - Vienna 1810), a character from prominent of the Habsburg Empire and the last exponent of his family, who left a conspicuous inheritance to Michele Coronini Cronberg. The quality of the workmanship is certain, performed in chiseled bands alternating with smooth bands, while the upper part of the lid of the sugar bowl, representing strawberries with relative leaves, was always made with chisel (leaves) with fusion elements (strawberries).

Needle lace in "Point de Sedan" made of fine linen thread. The decorations, consisting of rather large and elaborate motifs, are made with an infinite number of patterned stitches and are repeated, alternating, every 33 centimeters. From family documents it appears that the precious object, nicknamed "Pizzo Coronini", originally belonged to Olga Westphalen Fürstenberg and her sister Thérèse Adamovich, as it was part of the rich Russian inheritance they received in 1913 upon the death of their maternal uncle, Count Eduard Cassini. Between 1967 and 1969 Guglielmo and his sister Nicoletta, evidently aware of its great value, bought their share of the lace from the two cousins Ivan Adamovich and Wilhelmine Herberstein, heirs of the late Aunt Thérèse, in exchange for silverware and pieces of furniture. thus becoming its exclusive owners.

The Renaissance manuscript on the game of chess kept in the Coronini Cronberg Library only in 2006 was recognized as an autograph work by the famous mathematician Luca Pacioli. The small leather-bound codex was immediately related to the treatise, entitled De ludo schacorum known as Schifanoia, for centuries considered completely lost, which Pacioli intended to dedicate to the marquises of Mantua Federico Gonzaga and Isabella d'Este and for which he had requested in Venice the privilege of printing in 1508. The drafting of the work was certainly already underway from 1496 to 1499, during the period that Luca Pacioli spent in Milan at the court of Ludovico il Moro, where he met Leonardo da Vinci, destined to lead to a long and fruitful friendship, as well as a professional collaboration. It is well known that the invention of the magnificent drawings of solids and polyhedra that illustrate the De divina proportione, the work dedicated to the golden section that Luca Pacioli completed in Milan.

This magnificent clock depicting the goddess Minerva is the work of Pierre Philippe Thomire, the most important bronze artist, that is, a producer of objects in gilded and patinated bronze, as well as decorative bronze decorations, from the Napoleonic era. His works, inspired by the ancient in the forms and decorative motifs, constitute some of the highest and most refined expressions of the Empire style. Appointed court chiseller, in 1811 he collaborated with the silversmith Odiot in the creation of the famous cradle for the king of Rome, the son of Napoleon and Maria Luisa of Austria.

The inkwell and the paperweight are part of a writing service that also includes two perfume cups and two candlesticks. The decoration is made with a technique typical of Russian high craftsmanship which consisted in obtaining thin sheets from malachite blocks which, subsequently, exploiting the particular shades and the different designs of the veins, were applied, like the tesserae of a mosaic, on bases in stone or metal. The final effect was that of an object apparently made of a single piece of malachite, because the joints between the various elements were hidden thanks to a special process that used tiny fragments of malachite mixed in a green colored mixture. Particularly precious results were then obtained by combining the malachite with gilded bronze elements, which create a pleasant contrast with the green color of the stone. In addition to the decoration of entire rooms, such as the famous Malachite Room of the Winter Palace, malachite was widely used in the production of sumptuous furnishings. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, tables, vases, candelabra, clocks and inkwells of extraordinary workmanship came out of the workshops of Peterhof and Ekaterinburg, which, offered as a gift by the tsars to foreign sovereigns, helped to spread admiration for this type throughout Europe. of objects.

It is a specimen of great value, embossed decorated in all its parts. The walnut wood case, sculpted in volutes in the lower part, has a butt in the shape of a flattened pear. The barrel is smooth, round, with two orders (hexagonal and round) and bears the signature in capital letters “LAZARINO COMINAZZO”. The signature on the barrel denounces the belonging to the Cominazzo manufacture, a great and famous Gardonese dynasty of masters of canes operating from the late sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The Cominazzo family did not manufacture rods, but they were exceptional 'levelers', producing specimens highly appreciated for their extraordinary qualities of thinness and strength, combined with the elegance of the external appearance.

Valuable pair of cups without brand name but due to the physical characteristics and decoration of the production of Claudius du Paquier, founder in 1718 of the Vienna porcelain factory, the second to be opened in Europe. The refined floral motif is of the type called Holzschnittblumen, characterized by large flowers, derived from the prints of botanical treatises, widely used in the very first production of European porcelain. Porcelain is a ceramic product based on kaolin, a particular type of light clay, and finely ground minerals such as quartz and feldspar, which when cooked at high temperatures becomes a material of great beauty, translucent white with a hard and compact texture. Born in China in the eighth and ninth centuries AD, porcelain began to be imported into Europe only in the fifteenth century. Numerous attempts were made to reproduce it immediately, but only at the beginning of the eighteenth century did the alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger discover its secret, setting up the first European factory in Meissen, near Dresden. The formula for the production of porcelain was jealously guarded by Meissen and Claudius du Paquier took advantage of his position as military adviser to the Austrian imperial court to get hold of the secret and to approach and recruit Meissen artisans. In 1718 it was thus possible to open the first porcelain factory in Austria, located near Vienna.

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt was one of the most fascinating sculptors of the Enlightenment. An academically trained artist, he obtained widespread approval in Vienna thanks to some original portraits, made for the Empress Maria Theresa and her court. After a study trip to Rome he was among the first sculptors to break with the sumptuous works of the Baroque tradition in favor of the more composed rhythms of Neoclassicism. At the height of his success, around 1770, Messerschmidt's life was shaken, however, by a profound personal crisis, perhaps caused by mental problems, which led him to leave Vienna and move to Pressburg, today's Bratislava. Here, while continuing to make portraits on commission from time to time, he devoted himself mainly to his most famous works, the "character heads". According to witnesses of the time, these portraits, characterized by expressions ranging from a firm classical impassivity to the most exaggerated and grotesque grimaces, constituted for Messerschmidt a means of keeping at bay and exorcising the demons by which he felt persecuted. Of the approximately 69 heads that were in the artist's studio at the time of his death in 1783 and that were inherited by his brother, 49 were exhibited in Vienna in 1793, and later went missing. Currently only 44 heads, preserved in museums and private collections, have been traced. The two heads of the Coronini collections were not included in the group of 49 works repeatedly exhibited since 1793, as they were probably previously sold by Messerschmidt's brother, who affixed the initials “F. M. Sch. " and perhaps even intervened with some cold finishing. Contrary to the other works in the series, which are able to stand autonomously on a base directly incorporated into the bust, those from Gorizia, following a subsequent alteration, instead rest on a wooden support, inserted in an alabaster pedestal. Identified by scholars as a variant of the greater simplicity of spirit, this head was called by Count Guglielmo Coronini the Man who looks at the sun.

The poor lacquer is a technique used mainly in the Lombardy-Veneto area during the eighteenth century, which aimed to economically imitate the expensive lacquered furniture imported from the East. The surface of the piece of furniture was in fact decorated with figures cut from prints, colored and skilfully arranged to form more or less elaborate compositions. The surface was then covered and protected with layers of lacquer. The scenes that cover this piece of furniture are inspired by the themes of hunting and fishing. The coping, or the upper crown in carved and gilded wood, is probably a later addition and suggests a Venetian or Austrian production. The piece of furniture is called "Casanova's trumeau" because Count Guglielmo Coronini kept part of his Casanovian collection, or rather the oldest editions of the writings of the famous Venetian adventurer, which constitute one of the most valuable components of the rich Coronini library.

Naturalistic-inspired jewels were very popular in the second half of the nineteenth century. The element that characterized them was the search, often bordering on virtuosity, for an accentuated realism that lasted for several decades until it resulted in the fascinating interpretations of Art Nouveau. This exuberant and precious orchid in gold and polychrome enamels from the prestigious Janesich company in Trieste is part of the always beloved floral subjects. The magnificent jewel, which seems to be affected by the preference, typical of the Eighties, for unusual or exotic plant essences and flowers, appears inspired by the famous series of orchids created by Tiffany for the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1889. This is not surprising from the since the attention to the most recent innovations presented internationally was a constant in the production of the Janesich company, the only one in the region to have regular relations with the most important Parisian fashion houses.

The wedding destination of this splendid fan is evident from the typically wedding subjects depicted on the front and back: two doves with orange flowers, and the bride's monogram, surrounded by roses and lilacs. The carving, fretwork and engraving of the mother-of-pearl slats are also of exceptional quality. The initials "ZL", surmounted by a princely crown, suggest that this fan was made on the occasion of the wedding of Zoe Bibikova, with her first husband Evgenj Lvov. After joining the Desrochers firm in 1849 as a fan decorator specializing in floral subjects and having married the owner's daughter, Felix Alexandre (1823-1887) took over his father-in-law's business, making his fans the most appreciated and sought after in the world. world. Its products, advertised by the charm of Empress Eugenie, met a large following among illustrious customers crowned, from Queen Victoria of England, to Queen Louise of Holland, to the Queen of Spain and the Empress of Russia Maria Fedorovna. Among the reasons for Alexandre's great success, also recognized at the Universal Expositions in London in 1862 and in Paris in 1867, there was the ability to choose collaborators of the highest level, both for the execution of the frames and for the decoration of the pages, also entrusted to famous artists.

After joining the Desrochers firm in 1849 as a fan decorator specializing in floral subjects and having married the owner's daughter, Felix Alexandre (1823-1887) took over his father-in-law's business, making his fans the most appreciated and sought after in the world. world. Its products, advertised by the charm of Empress Eugenie, met a large following among illustrious customers crowned, from Queen Victoria of England, to Queen Louise of Holland, to the Queen of Spain and the Empress of Russia Maria Fedorovna. Among the reasons for Alexandre's great success, also recognized at the Universal Expositions in London in 1862 and in Paris in 1867, there was the ability to choose collaborators of the highest level, both for the execution of the frames and for the decoration of the pages, also entrusted to famous artists. This is the case of Eduard de Beaumont (1812-1888), painter, etching artist, lithographer and illustrator, whose signature appears in the illustrated fan with one of those eighteenth-century subject scenes, brought back into vogue by the Empress Eugenie's passion for the Rococo style. .

The dress consists of a tailcoat, undershirt and trousers. A fundamental element of eighteenth-century clothing, the tailcoat, called velada in the Veneto area, has a military origin and owes its name to Count Jean de Marsin. It looks like a long jacket with flaps, with a line fitted to the bust and flared at the hips. Characteristic are the sleeves that are not very long but flared at the bottom and have wide cuffs. The wide and flat buttons are numerous and constitute an important decorative element. The tailcoat was always worn open to leave the undersea in plain sight, usually made with more precious fabrics and a contrasting color. This sleeveless garment has a tight fit and is always shorter than the tailcoat. The trousers, also called braghe or bragoni, have a tapered line and are short at the knee, where they are fastened with some buttons. In the eighteenth century, men's clothing still showed a profusion of colors and ornaments. The most common decorations were, as in this case, floral embroideries, characterized by an exuberance of colors and botanical forms, often rendered with great realism.

Widespread in the nineteenth century, the "friendship cups" were usually single pieces, collectible or showcase, decorated with a symbolic or allegorical image, accompanied by a motto, a maxim or a dedication. The ones produced by the Vienna manufacturer were very beautiful and were distinguished by the bright colors of the enamels, such as the example of the Coronini collections dated 1812.

Chalice made by fusion that reproduces in an extremely realistic way, thanks to a very skilful chiselling work, the head of a dog. This is an extraordinary work from the prestigious Sazikov atelier, founded in Moscow in 1793 by Pavel Fedorovich Sazikov, who was succeeded in 1830 by his son Ignatij who opened a branch in Petersburg in 1842. In 1846 the manufacture received the title of court supplier, which allowed it to place the imperial insignia with the double-headed eagle next to its name. In 1851 Ignatij Sazikov participated in the Universal Exhibition in London with nineteen objects, including various table sculptures, depicting historical and popular subjects or naturalistic motifs, which found no rivals in the surprising ability to render the most different in an absolutely realistic way materials, from the fur of animals to the bark of trees, rightly awarded with the award of the highest honor, the Council Medal. The particular type of this object is most likely inspired by the English stirrup cups, that is the "glasses of the stirrup" offered to knights about to leave for the hunt and traditionally conformed, in a sort of propitiatory rite, to the likeness of a fox, deer, hare or hound. The word "Fidelity" is engraved on the base in Cyrillic characters, followed by the date 1 January 1856.

The Neo-Gothic style cathedral bracelet contains a miniature portrait of Edwin de Fagan, the younger brother of Sophie de Fagan, who tragically died in 1829, aged only thirty-two, following a fall from the gig. Made in the workshop of Jean-Baptiste Fossin, who from 1819 held the prestigious role of "jeweler of the king" as indicated by the label glued on the original case, the bracelet, datable to the end of the third decade, with its scrolls, pinnacles , the two aedicules with the knights in armor and the delicate enamel flowers is a typical example of that neo-Gothic style, inspired by the rediscovery of the Middle Ages, which after having appeared in the early nineteenth century, experienced a significant revival starting from the Fifty. The jewels decorated with the miniature portrait of a loved one were among the most popular sentimental jewels during the eighteenth century and continued to enjoy great popularity even in the following century. The miniature inserted in the bracelet is the work of Pauline Ducruet (1781-1865), wife of the more famous Jean Baptiste Jacques Augustin (1759-1832), one of the best-known illuminators of his time, whose naturalism was opposed to the accentuated impressionism of the contemporary Jean Baptiste Isabey. A pupil of her husband, Pauline Augustin, she faithfully imitated his style, to the point that their works are often difficult to distinguish.

Manufacturing active since the seventeenth century, that of the Antonibon di Nove was one of the most important of its time in the northern area, with a vast production in majolica, but, starting from the mid-eighteenth century, also in porcelain. The tureen, with three-dimensional grip, has one of the typical decorations of the manufacture, the one called “baroque fruit”, characterized by groups of large fruits, executed at high heat with a range of colors that included the ferrina red, the secret formula of the manufacture.

As confirmed by the recent restoration, which made it possible to finally put together the various pieces in which the piece of furniture had been disassembled for some time, the wooden structure, carved with scrolls and floral motifs in a Rococo style, certainly dates back to the second half of the nineteenth century. , when the taste for the ornamental repertoire of the time of Louis XV had returned to meet great favor throughout Europe and especially in Russia. The porcelain elements, on the other hand, or at least certainly the figured supports of the shelves, were made in the Meissen factory in the early part of the eighteenth century. On one of the two, in fact, the “K.H.C” trademark was found, which seems to have been used to indicate the ownership and location of the pieces, in this specific case the “Königliche Hof Conditorey”, or the Royal Court pastry. As is known, the first European porcelain factory was founded in Meissen, near Dresden, by the will of Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony and later king of Poland with the name of Augustus II. The characteristic logo with crossed swords in blue underpaint appears on the back of the medallions of the drawers, which depict gallant scenes inspired by the compositions of Antoine Watteau, alternating with smaller ones with groups of cupids. Due to the pictorial quality of the images, obtained by means of a delicate dotting, these decorations are compatible with a dating around the mid-18th century, when the revival, through prints, of inventions by French Rococo artists such as Watteau or Boucher was widely practiced in Meissen. In essence, it is clear that the piece of furniture was built in the nineteenth century with the specific intent of using these ancient porcelain elements, as confirmed by the fact that two of them were inserted, in a somewhat incongruous way, even in the frame of the mirror. While the oval plates are rather simple pieces reminiscent of those used as bottoms for boxes or snuffboxes, the six vertical elements may have originally belonged to some articulated tableware, to be precise to one of those surtouts, complicated multi-arm machines intended for supporting plates or trays of fruit or sweets, which in the eighteenth century were used as centerpieces. This hypothesis is confirmed by the trademark found on one of the pieces which, as we have seen, refers its destination to the real pastry shop.