Exhibition | Furniture and Cabinetmakers at the Savoy Court
Luigi Prinotto, Chest with four drawers, depicting stories of Saint Bruno and the foundation of the Carthusian Order, 1736
(Private Collection)
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The exhibition at the Palace Venaria, near Turin, closed in June, but the catalogue is available from ArtBooks.com:
Genius and Skill: Furniture and Cabinetmakers at the Court of Savoy
Venaria Reale, Torino, 17 March — 15 June 2018
The exhibition aims to better define the history of furniture making in Piedmont between the 18th and 19th centuries through a display of 130 exceptional pieces crafted by the finest cabinet-makers and sculptors of the time—Luigi Prinotto, Pietro Piffetti, Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo, and Gabriele Capello known as ‘Il Moncalvo’—some of which will be presented for the first time thanks to loans from important Piedmontese and international museums and collections.
The purpose of the exhibition is to familiarize the public with precious cabinetmaking and inlay works, emphasizing their significance, use, and transformations with technical and scientific insights and multimedia installations. The exhibition tells the story of an elegant, cultivated, and complex craft that developed in Turin to cater to the needs of important royal and aristocratic patrons, in conjunction with other arts.
Special care has been adopted to design a display that is accessible to disabled visitors, including scale models, touch tablets, olfactory islands, and an Italian Sign Language video-guide. Moreover, description panels and labels are written in the EasyReading font, which is highly readable and facilitates reading for dyslexic persons.
Organizing and Scientific committee: Cesare Annibaldi, Roberto Antonetto, Clelia Arnaldi di Balme, Elisabetta Ballaira, Enrico Colle, Stefania De Blasi, Silvia Ghisotti, Luisa Papotti, Carla Enrica Spantigati
Coordinated by Carlo Callieri
Cesare Annibaldi, Roberto Antonetto, et al, Genio e Maestria: Mobili ed Ebanisti alla Corte Sabauda tra Settecento ed Ottocento (Turin: Allemandi, 2018), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-8842224594, $70.
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