National Heritage rescues an old lost dream: the fourth comfortable of the official office of Carlos III, it is believed that lost since the early NINETEENTH century. Has gone to New York to buy it in an auction at Christie’s, and brings it by 400,000 euros, a price four times higher than the supply of output. The piece he had lost the trail since he disappeared, do not know when, or how, of the Royal Palace.
the three jewels Of Rococo that are kept may only be the which is preserved in The Brown. The other two are inaccessible to the public view except on 24 December, christmas Eve, when the king Felipe VI, is addressed to all the Spanish from his office in The Zarzuela. There appear, glittering, framing the monarch in the plane that lets you see, in the background, the window that overlooks the Christmas tree in the royal garden. It is widely known the devotion of the present king by the figure of Carlos III, who placed it behind him, in his speech, more committed, after the referendum illegal 1-O.
The comfortable designed by Matteo Gasparini between 1765-1775 will be exhibited at the Museum of the Royal Collections, whose opening might happen in 2024. “If they had not been acquired it would have been very painful for the Spanish heritage, but it is not expected to exceed 250,000 euros,” says Angel Castan, art specialist courtier of the EIGHTEENTH century and professor of Art History at the Autonomous University of Madrid. In fact, the operation of purchase was carried in absolute secrecy from National Heritage when in April we had news of the sale of the furniture this Tuesday.
The decorator napolitano
“it Is a very important piece and we do not know where you have been all this time or how he left Spain. There are more furniture of that office real that are for sale in antique shops new yorkers, as one of the libraries. But ask for her $ 900,000,” says Castan. According to the expert began to be built at the beginning of the sixties of the EIGHTEENTH century and it took nearly 20 years to finish the full set, which was dismantled shortly afterwards, with the ascension to the throne, in 1788, his son Carlos IV. He brought a few tastes less cluttered.
The comfortable were situated in the central dispatch of the three that the king “enlightened,” had intended for his office, with privileged views over the Campo del Moro. Gasparini came from Naples with the monarch, where he had served as a decorator during his reign napolitano. The assignment was to make the Royal Palace that was to be built on the ruins of the Alcazar burned down in 1734 a ship propagandistic able to impress the international diplomacy. Along with the Gasparini arrived Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Anton Raphael Mengs to make a reality of the opulent desires of Carlos III.
The “adornista” Gasparini, the king appointed him director of the workshops, the actual, which included embroidery, the bronze and the woodwork. The cabinetmaker Jose Canops collaborated with the Italian in the exuberant decoration of the narrow quarters of a working royal, with silk curtains, pink marble floors and the walls are covered by more silk. The fronts of the four unique pieces have designs of birds, fish and flowers, in ebony that mimics the chinese lacquer.
