A neo-classical discovery at the Bowes Museum: the identification of a signature has allowed a pair of marquetry panels in the Bowes Museum to be attributed to the Italian cabinetmaker Francesco Abbiati. Claire Jones traces the source for one of the panels, in Nicolas Ponce's engravings of Roman wall paintings

When the Bowes Museum opened its doors to the public in 1892, it became apparent that its founders, John and Josephine Bowes, had amassed one of the most comprehensive British collections of Continental fine and decorative arts from the 1400s to the 1870s. Within the collections are around 700 items of woodwork, purchased by the Bowes through dealers and by personally visiting international exhibitions. (1) The woodwork collection is broad-ranging, encompassing different styles, periods, and quality of craftsmanship and composition. It includes a fifteenth-century Brussels carved oak altarpiece with fine painted panels attributed to the Master of St Gudule; items of architectural woodwork; a collection of eighteenth-century tobacco graters; numerous works on religious themes, including carved panels, reliquaries and misericords; and a selection of Romanian wooden spoons purchased at the 1867 International Exhibition in Paris. This suggests that the Bowes' intentions were, as with their collection as a whole, to bring as varied and curious a selection of European fine and decorative arts as possible to the people of Teesdale and beyond. (2)

Research continues to unearth hidden treasures at the Bowes. One recent find is the discovery of two previously unrecorded works by the Italian cabinetmaker Francesco Abbiati, who flourished around 1780 to 1800. They are two framed marquetry panels in neo-classical style. The new attribution is primarily based on a closer examination of the signature on one of the panels, inventory number W.122, as Fran.o/Abbiati (Fig. 1). Only three signed pieces by Abbiati were previously known. These are a table at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; a table sold by Christie's, Villa d'Este (Como), 27 May 1971; and a table in a private collection. (3)

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Francesco Abbiati's life and work are relatively obscure. Born at an unknown date in Mondello, near Lake Como, he is known to have worked in Milan, Rome and Madrid, and to have produced works for the courts of Naples and Madrid, including an untraced table made for Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples, in 1783. (4) Active in the last two decades of the eighteenth century, Abbiati was typically influenced by the prevalent neo-classical style. The form and design of his work reflect that of the renowned Italian cabinetmaker Giuseppe Maggiolini (1738-1814). Both have a highly structured, geometric approach. Figurative scenes taken directly from, or inspired by, Roman wall paintings and marble friezes are framed with elaborate borders of motifs and symbols derived from antiquity.

The new discovery at the Bowes Museum brings the number of known signed pieces by Abbiati to four. Interestingly, however, all four signatures are different. The table at the J. Paul Getty Museum is signed and dated 'Fran.co Abbiati/179(?)'; the table sold by Christie's in 1971 'Abbiati Mondello'; the example in a private collection 'Franc. Abbiati'; and the panel at the Bowes Museum, 'Fran.o/Abbiati'. The reason for these variations is unknown, yet the signatures on the Getty and Bowes examples are stylistically similar.

Each panel measures 94 cm by 63.5 cm. Both are made of walnut, no. W.121 being constructed from five vertical panels and no. W.122 from two. The reverse of each panel has diagonal cuts, possibly an attempt to prevent the matrix wood from warping. Each panel suffers from long vertical cracks, which have repairs possibly carried out in the mid-nineteenth century. The marquetry, however, is stable. The veneers, of fruitwood, are relatively large in scale. Rather than movement and depth being created through the application of numerous small sections of veneers, these are created by detailed engraving, particularly cross-hatching, of the marquetry's surface. This appears to be a typical feature of Abbiati's work, as does the use of contrasting light and dark woods in depicting the two children in panel no. W.122. (5) Maggiolini employed both these techniques--engraving and the use of contrasting woods in figurative sections--and it is probable that Maggiolini's methods, style and print sources had a profound influence on Abbiati's development as a cabinetmaker.

The panels' frames, of ebonised wood with a gilt slip, are mid-nineteenth-century additions. These are very similar to frames used on paintings by Josephine Bowes, and the panels may have hung in one of her private homes, either at 7 rue de Berlin in Paris, or at the Chateau du Barry at Louveciennes, before being destined for the museum project. Each panel bears numbers on the reverse. (6) These possibly refer to sale or early Bowes inventories.

The panels are stylistically and technically similar to signed and attributed Abbiati pieces. No. W.122 (Fig. 3) depicts two women, both dressed in flowing garments and wearing laurel wreaths. To the left, two children carry a book and a painting or sketch. To the right is the figure of a man, possibly depicted as a painting on an easel. An artist's palette with brushes lies on a table in the foreground. Abbiati's signature appears on the table leg. The print source for this panel has been traced to a volume already identified by Mario Tavella as a source used by Abbiati, Nicolas Ponce's Description des Bains de Titus, Paris, 1786, revealing that Abbiati sought inspiration in this volume for more than one work. (7)

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The women on the panel are modelled on those on the extreme left of plate XX in the Description des Bains de Titus (Fig. 4). The image has been reversed, the scale altered, and laurel wreaths added, presumably to emphasise the Classical nature of the piece. Moreover, the panel's background details are not found in the print. These appear to be truncated, suggesting that the panels were once larger, and possibly formed part of a series of wail panels. However, there is no evidence of fixings on their reverse.

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Ponce is described in the frontispiece of his book as 'Graveur ordinaire de cabinet de Mgr Comte D'Artois'. The engravings were produced under his direction, while the introduction and explanatory text were written by Fortune Barthelemy de Felice. According to Felice, these wall paintings were rediscovered by the architect Charles Cameron in the baths of Titus, Rome, and excavations were initiated by Pope Pius VI. The avant propos clearly demonstrates the authors' intentions, that the engravings should provide a reference for modern artists and craftsmen: 'Good artists copied all the paintings, and it is the engravings of these drawings executed with care from the original by well-known artists, that Professor de Felice presents today to the public. (8) Described as being superior to those at Herculaneum, these paintings must have provided inspiration to numerous artists and craftsmen of the late eighteenth century, and clearly date the panels as having been produced sometime after 1786.

The second panel, no. W.121 (Fig. 2), depicts a woman dressed in flowing garments; at her side is a winged figure of a man, presumably Eros, with a quiver of arrows. The print source for this second, unsigned, panel has yet to be identified.

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Unfortunately, John and Josephine Bowes died before the museum was completed. The galleries have been arranged by subsequent curators, and it is not clear whether Josephine intended these panels to be displayed within the galleries, or whether they may have been intended to furnish her personal apartments, planned for the upper storey. The lines between public and private, of items purchased for personal or museum use, are blurred. It is testimony to the breadth and depth of the Bowes' purchasing and collecting that curators continue to make new discoveries within these fascinating collections.

(1) For more information regarding the Bowes' purchases at the International Exhibitions, see Howard Coutts and Sarah Medlam, 'John and Josephine Bowes' Purchases from the International Exhibitions of 1862, 1867, and 1871', Decorative Arts Society, 1850 to the present, no. 16, 1992, pp. 55-56, which includes references to items of woodwork.

(2) The majority of the woodwork collection is accessible on the Bowes Museums' online searchable collections database, at www.bowesmuseum.org.uk/ collections.

(3)The table at the J. Paul Getty Museum is no. 84.DA.77. See Charissa Bremer-David, Decorative Arts, An Illustrated Summary Catalogue of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA, 1993, p. 191, illustrated, and Gillian Wilson, Charissa Bremer-David and C. Gay Nieda, 'Selected acquisitons made by the Department of Decorative Arts in 1984', The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, vol. XIII, 1985, no. 254, illustrated. For the table in a private collection signed 'Franc.Abbiati' see Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, Il Gusto dei Principi, Milan, 1993, vol. II, figs. 627 and 628.

(4) See Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, 'Francesco Abbiati, un lombardo fra Roma e Madrid', in Il Gusto dei Principi, Milan, 1993, vol. I, pp. 350-59: vol. II, pp. 314-30, 625-51. For more recently attributed pieces, see Mario Tavella, 'Additions to the Oeuvre of Francesco Abbiati', in Furniture History, vol. XXXVIII, 2002, pp. 97-107.

(5) See, for example, Abbiati's table at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, in which the figures in the corner motifs are similarly represented using contrasting light and dark woods.

(6) Both panels bear a paper label written in ink, '53', and a pencil note to the frame, 'no. 406'.

(7) See Mario Tavella, 'Additions to the Oeuvre of Francesco Abbiati', Funiture History, vol. XXXVIII, 2002, pp. 97-107, figs. 1 to 3 and 6 to 7, in which engravings from Ponce are reproduced (in reverse) on a marquetry bureau cabinet (private collection) attributed by Tavella to Abbiati.

(8) Author's translation: 'De bons Deffinateurs en copierent toutes les peintures, & ce font les gravures de ces deffins, executees avec foin d'apres les Originaux par des Artifts celebres, que le Profeffeur de Felice prefent aujourd'hui au public'. Nicholas Ponce, Description des Bains de Titus, Paris, 1786.

(9) Plate XX is reproduced in Saloman Reinach, Repertoire de peintures grecques et romaines ... Avec ... gravures, Paris, 1922, p. 66, illustration 9, although in reverse to the original. Reinach identifies the main figures as Eros and Aphrodite surprised by the gods: 'Autrefois a Rome, connu par un dessin de l'Escurial. [...] le jeune homme assis serait Apollon.'

Claire Jones is keeper of furniture at the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham.

For information on the museum, telephone +44 [0] 1833 690606, or visit www.bowesmuseum.org.uk

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