A Highly Important Documentary Pietra Dura Table Top by Giuseppe Darmanin of Malta on its Original English Rosewood Table base, c.1835

A Highly Important Documentary Pietra Dura Table Top by Giuseppe Darmanin of Malta on its Original English Rosewood and Mahogany Table base, c.1835

The table base of carved rosewood in the late George IV style. The table features bold egg and dart mouldings to the top and base of the frieze, a carved central pillar and large scale carved paw feet. Stylistically the base could certainly be the work of Gillows or indeed their Scottish rival William Trotter who both produced tables in this sort of style for wealthy connoisseurs of this period.

There is no doubt as to the authorship of the wonderful pietra dura specimen marble top however. Even without any kind of mark it would have been possible to attribute it with near certainty to the Maltese firm of Giuseppe Darmanin (often Anglicised to J. Darmanin) of Valetta on the basis of its great similarity to a labelled piece by the firm in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum which can be seen online here:

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O101882/table-darmanin/?carousel-image=2006BG9253

Both our table and the V&A piece feature central medallions with the famous doves of Pliny image, otherwise known as the Capitoline doves taken from a mosaic floor design discovered in Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli. This in turn is believed to have been copied from another mosaic, now lost, in Pergamon in ancient Greece.

Our table is also similar to the V&A example in its use of sea shells, coral and other maritime decorative devices in the first of the sections bordering the central medallion. However whilst the V&A piece is rather busily decorated in this area, ours is ore selectively inlaid, probably because the V&A piece has a plain outer border whereas our piece uses multiple inlaid specimen marbles in a geometric pattern here instead and the combination of this work and the busier inner border would have been rather overwhelming.

The V&A table top uses what might be termed a typical colour palette for Darmanin with greys and creams predominating as background colours. Our piece, however, uses a highly unusual earthy colour scheme, principally based around shades of brown. This harmonises beautifully with the table base in a way that few specimen tops manage to do and is particularly desirable as a result.

The V&A’s table was acquired in Malta by Sir Watkin Pell, a Royal Navy commander who, at the time of the piece’s purchase in 1841, was in command of HMS Howe. The table has a label on the base for ‘J. Darmanin and Sons, marble makers’.

In contrast to the V&A piece, our table does not have a label, nor does it have the name of the firm inlaid in to the top in some way as has been noted on a few examples. Our table has an engraved inscription on the base, presumably applied by hand with a chisel, which reads:

‘Maestro Giuseppe Darmanin

Marmoraro Strade Levante

Valletta 45 Malta’

This inscription is highly important for a number of reasons. So far no other Darmanin table top with an inscription of this sort appears to be recorded. The use of the word “maestro” suggests that this piece was particularly important to the firm, important enough for them to want to record their involvement in the piece for posterity in a much more permanent way than attaching a label. This could indicate that this piece was intended for an important exhibition of one sort or another perhaps. The firm later exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851 and later international exhibitons but given the style of the table base, it is nlikely that the piece could have been produced as later as 1850. It is also notable that there is no mention of Darmanin’s sons in the inscription which implies that this could be a very early example of the firm’s work, before the various Darmanin brothers had joined their father’s firm. Documentary details like this make an enormous difference to the desirability of a piece and this is a highly significant discovery in furniture history terms.

The firm of Darmanin has just recently been given academic attention due to Jessica Muscat’s work on the firm and the efforts of Dr. Kate Hay from the V&A. Dr Hay’s article in Furniture History, Vol. 46, 2010, pp. 157-188 was invaluable when cataloguing our piece and we are also very grateful to Dr Hay for looking at photographs of the table and giving us the benefit of her expertise.

This outstanding table is entirely fresh to the market, having been in the collection of a school in Hampshire for many years. It was donated to the school by a grateful family whose children had been educated there. Depository labels on the piece also reveal that it had once been in the possession of a Mrs Norris.

Provenance 

Mrs Norris

The Leahy family of Tuckermill House

Gifted to Walhampton School, near Lymington, Hampshire