Analysis: Tables for two as joint bid secures a fine example of baroque

THESE tables perfectly embody the Italian baroque style. Both artists – Lucio de Lucci, author of the marquetry tops, and the anonymous sculptor of the frames, thought to be the celebrated Andrea Brustolon – employ technical mastery of materials, in a single bravura performance.

The physical impression of constant and vigorous movement in the frames complements the writhing foliage and heterogeneous detail in the marquetry – a decorative veneer, made here of different woods, ivory, stained horn and pewter.

Clues embedded in this marquetry suggest the circumstances in which the tables were commissioned. Alongside a conventional stag hunt, a desperate battle scene is taking place. In one corner milkmaids stand and gossip while elsewhere a man in free-flowing robes smokes a long pipe. In the centre of one table a galley sets out from a port city, guns firing, while in the other turbaned men congregate in a sun-drenched piazza.

These figures make perfect sense in the context of the now long-forgotten Morean War.

Between 1685 and 1688, Venetian forces battled the army of Ottoman Turkey for gains in the Greek Peloponnese. Francesco Morosini, commander-in-chief of the Venetian navy, led his men to victory after victory until Athens was briefly taken. Morosini was elected Doge and awarded the Papal Sword by a grateful Pope Alexander VIII. It is tempting to conclude that these tables were commissioned by Morosini for his own palace.

Furniture of this quality is very rare and the Italian baroque is not well represented in British collections. When the 5th Duke of Buccleuch bought the tables from a London dealer, Edward Holmes Baldock, for Dalkeith Palace in 1833, both collector and dealer were looking beyond conventional taste. We are remarkably fortunate in being able to partner with the V&A in response to the export stop,

l Stephen Jackson is senior curator of applied art and design, at National Museums Scotland