Two section piece of furniture decorated with Lacca Povera technique

This desk is made in two sections: the lower part has three
drawers and a drop-down top, while the upper part has a cupboard with two
mirrored doors, which conceal eight small, decorated drawers. It was decorated using the lacca povera technique, where separately
produced standard engravings were applied and the actual painted decoration was
limited to the addition of few details and to the backgrounds. The original technique of lacquering
consisted in applying to the finished piece of furniture a layer of transparent
lacquer over the entire surface, according to the Oriental technique imported
into Europe at the end of the sixteenth century by the Portuguese. The original
procedure required as many as fifteen to eighteen coats and was therefore
time-consuming, expensive and complicated. To satisfy growing demand, the faster and
more economical technique of lacca povera
was introduced. The
drawings represent romantic scenes taken from popular mid-eighteenth century
engravings of paintings by three French painters, Watteau, Pater and Iancret,
in which a lively Venetian-style chromaticism is combined with a realistic
attention to detail typical of Flemish painting.