Asta Bidspirit | Important lifting top wood table,

Important lifting top wood table, Ferdinando Gargiulo, circa 1880 - veneered and finely inlaid in walnut and other precious wood essences including olive, lemon tree and orange tree. The decagonal plan has a large circular reserve in the center with a classic scene in which a mother with her two children, sitting on her on the sofa, listens to a story told by a male character holding a lyre in his hand; the inlay is included within a frame with minute vegetal and zoomorphic decorations which is in turn enclosed in a band which presents the same decorative motifs but rendered with greater detail; on the median portion, scenes of cherubs, caught in various playful attitudes with some animals, complete the decoration of the surface, concluded near the profile of the edge by ten friezes delimited by a Greek motif. The four arched uprights feature an equally refined inlay, depicting a long candelabra with a leafy stem on which cherubs and birds perch, resting on a pedestal supported by elephants; base with arched profiles also inlaid. The table is signed on the top: F.do Gargiulo Villa Gargiulo Sorrento, cm. 85x102 (defects on the top and base)Together with the brothers Almerico and Antonino, Ferdinando Gargiulo was among the major Sorrento inlay craftsmen active between the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. Son of Luigi, who began working as an inlayer in Sorrento in 1824, Ferdinando continued his father's activity, bringing the inlay technique to levels of absolute excellence, also making use of enamel decoration on wood and favoring the use of light woods, in particular orange, widespread in Sorrento cultivations.