|
Bonzanigo, Giuseppe Maria
(b Asti, 6 Sept 1745; d Turin, 18 Dec 1820). Italian furniture-maker, sculptor and ornamentalist. He belonged to a family who owned a workshop of wood-carvers and organcase-makers in Asti. In 1773 he started working for the Savoy family and the following year gained admission to the Accademia di S Luca, Turin. In the accounts of the royal family he is recorded as having supplied numerous stools, chairs, armchairs, benches, sofas, screens, prie-dieux, beds and mirrors, as well as many ornamental panels and chests-of-drawers, for the Palazzo Reale in Turin and for royal residences at Moncalieri, Rivoli, Stupinigi, Venaria and Govone. His style is best expressed when, as part of a team of architects and assistants, he was commissioned to decorate and furnish entire rooms, such as the State Rooms of the Queen and King at Stupinigi. His work is characterized by its departure from the traditional school of Franco-Piedmontese inlay and marquetry cabinetmaking in favour of a more predominant use of carving. He adhered to Neo-classical forms in their most plastic, solid and vigorous, yet elegant, expression, in which the profusion of carvings always had a symbolic, allegorical and commemorative significance, with great use of garlands, emblems and trophies. In 1787 he was appointed wood-carver for Victor-Amadeus III and in 1793 was admitted ad honorem to the Accademia Clementina in Bologna. When Piedmont was conquered by Napoleon, the reputation of Bonzanigo—considered to be a collaborator—grew, overshadowing that of many of his colleagues, some of whose work may have been attributed incorrectly to him. In 1808 he exhibited at the Salon de Paris, and in 1815, on the return of the Savoy family, he was reinstated as royal sculptor; as a sculptor he is remembered for his Military Trophy (Turin, Pal. Madama), for the retable in the Sala del Trono (Turin, Pal. Reale), and especially for his small bas-relief portraits in light wood or ivory, which, set in their refined frames, evoke the cameo or wax silhouettes of the 18th century.
|
