An Italian gilt-bronze mounted burr walnut and ebonised tabernacle probably Rome, early 18th century

surmounted by a broken pediment topped with gilt-bronze finial with the coat of arms of the Grimani family, the upper part with an empty round cavity and brass gallery flanked by Solomonic columns, the lower part with a central door centred by the Grimani coat of arms and enclosing a single compartment

Alvar González-Palacios, Il tempio del gusto : Roma e il Regno delle Due Sicilie, Milan, 1984, II, fig. 104;

Alvar González-Palacios, Arredi e ornamenti alla corte di Roma, Milan, 2004. 

Some of the gilt-bronze statuettes are detachable. The gallery possibly later, the upper case backing altered at some point. The lower-left side statuette with its plinth broken and re-attached. One segment of moulding to the top, circa 2.5cm. long, is detached but present. All four columns with some movement, the lower pair with secure but detached bases. Some old restorations to the veneer, including filling to old woodworm holes (the woodworm appears to be no longer active). The base with one further segment of moulded border detached but present. The interior of the tabernacle niche with worn and stained red velvet lining. The lock with key in good working order. A very rare piece.
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This rare tabernacle relates to a group of clock cases and reliquaries of architectural shape made between Florence, Rome and Naples from the late 17^th century to the early decades of the following century. One clock by Suster in the Residenz, Munich, interestingly features a medallion containing a pietre dure portrait, providing a clue to the possible original function of the aperture found on the upper part of the present piece. 

Nocturnal clocks – illuminated by a candle inserted in the case – were especially popular, and widely produced also in Rome and Naples. However, the door on our tabernacle appears to be too narrow to have ever contained a clock movement within. Intriguingly, however, a nocturnal clock with an architectural outline of comparable inventiveness, veneered in tortoiseshell, is in the collects ions at Palazzo Altieri, Rome (ill. in González-Palacios, 2004, pp. 106-108). As noted by Palacios (idem, p. 106) such cases were almost exclusively the work of foreign, predominantly German cabinet-makers, which could contribute towards an explanation for the unusual veneer found on the present tabernacle.

The gilt-bronze finial and the pewter strapwork door on the tabernacle both feature the coat of arms of the intensely cosmopolitan, Venetian house of Grimani. Illustrious members of this family at the beginning of the 18^th century include Pietro Grimani (1677-1752) – who, elected 115^th Doge of Venice in 1741, had been sent to Rome as an ambassador in 1714 – and, perhaps most importantly, Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani (b.1655). An amateur librettist, Grimani famously supplied the libretto for George Frideric Handel’s Agrippina (1709). Sent to Vienna by Pope Clemens XI in 1700, he was named cardinal in 1706; two years later he received the honour of the viceroyalty of Naples, where he died in 1710.