This exquisitely carved panel offers an extraordinary self-portrait of the Piedmontese furniture-maker, sculptor and ornamentalist Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (1745–1820). Bonzanigo heralded from a family of wood-carvers and organcase-makers in Asti, and in 1773 he began working for the Savoy family. Over the course of the ensuing decades, he is documented supplying countless stools, chairs, armchairs, benches, sofas, screens, prie-dieux, beds, mirrors, chests-of-drawers and ornamental panels for the Palazzo Reale in Turin, as well as for the royal residences at Moncalieri, Rivoli, Stupinigi, Venaria and Govone. In concert with teams of architects and assistants, Bonzanigo was commissioned to decorate and furnish entire rooms in the palaces of the Savoy, with a particularly fine example being the State Rooms of the queen and king at Stupinigi. Stylistically his work marks a departure from Franco-Piedmontese traditions of inlay and marquetry cabinetmaking in favour of a more predominant use of carving. Bonzanigo embraced neoclassical forms in their most elegant expression, and his works are invariably distinguished by an ornate profusion of finely carved garlands, emblems and trophies carrying complex symbolic, allegorical and commemorative significance.



In 1787 Bonzanigo was appointed wood-carver for Victor-Amadeus III. When Piedmont was conquered by Napoleon, Bonzanigo’s reputation grew further, overshadowing that of many of his colleagues, and in 1808 he exhibited at the Salon de Paris. Upon the return of the Savoy family in 1815, he was reinstated as royal sculptor. As a sculptor Bonzanigo is perhaps best remembered for his Military Trophy (Palazzo Madama, Turin), for the retable in the Sala del Trono (Palazzo Reale, Turin) and most especially for his small bas-relief portraits in light wood or ivory, which, set in their refined frames, evoke the cameo and wax silhouettes of the eighteenth century. These extraordinary works of micro-sculpture have perhaps been slightly overshadowed in recent years by the importance ascribed to Bonzanigo’s skills as a decorator and furniture-maker. Nevertheless, the fame he achieved during his lifetime derived precisely from the extraordinarily precise skill he demonstrated in the minute carving of wood and ivory, resulting in a plethora of commissions from the royal family, the Piedmontese aristocracy and from the Napoleonic establishment.

The present panel may be considered Bonzanigo’s preeminent achievement in micro-sculpture portraiture, and moreover depicts the master at the apex of his career at the court of the Savoy. Enclosed within a central medallion ringed by a laurel wreath and surmounted by a lion mask flanked by acanthus leaves, the artist is represented in dignified profile, with a self-assured expression and dressed as a gentleman of refinement and success. Below the portrait proper, an inscribed tablet reads “JOSEPH MARIE BONZANIGO . SCVLPTEVR . DU ROI DE SARDAIGNE”. Garlands of medallions bearing portraits in silhouette are stung in the upper corners, joining the acanthus embellishments in the upper frame to two upright vases flanking the central portrait medallion.From these vases issue forth foliate wreaths, and supporting them are socles consisting of fruits and wheat sheaves. The vases bear the king's initials “V[ictorius] R[ex]”, and another two discreet “VR” cyphers can be seen amidst the portrait garlands. A small medallion in the upper left garland is inscribed 1796, dating the work. Scrolls in the upper frame bear a partially-lost inscription: "J.A ROS(...)IGN(...) LEUR(...)M(...)SE(...)F / LES ATS RECO(...)N(...)S(...)N". In the panel’s corners and along the sides are further small portrait medallions, along with a number of smaller silhouette portraits echoing those in the garlands. These portraits are interspersed with lozenges carved with allegorical trophies relating to sculpture and architecture, all joined together by a central cord and threaded through with twining vines. In the lower border of the panel is another frieze bearing the heads of hounds, a tiger, a lion and a cockerel.


Elements found throughout the panel can be found across Bonzanigo’s oeuvre, evidence of the rich decorative and emblematic lexicon the master revisited and revitalized with each artistic iteration. The vases at left and right of the central portrait bear comparison with architectural decorations in the apartments of the Dukes of Aosta in the Palazzo Reale, Turin, while a signed drawing for the main altar frontal in the church of San Francesco d’Assisi in Turin (1787, Biblioteca Reale, Turin) has several decorative elements in common with the present work, including the acanthus leaves embracing the lion medallion in the work’s uppermost register. In the Anticamera della Regina at the Palazzo Stupinigi, the walls are framed with bands of entwined vines, much like those in the side borders of the present work, and a similar motif also appears in an exceptional relief panel depicting the Three Graces at Palazzo Madama, Turin. Garlands of coins, albeit without portraits in silhouette, can be seen in a portrait of Victor Emanuel I in wood and ivory now in a private collection.

Claudio Bertolotto has suggested that the smaller profile portraits throughout the work depict sculptors and architects whom Bonzanigo collaborated on projects for the house of Savoy. Meanwhile, the silhouetted portraits found in the garlands and elsewhere might represent the teams of associates and assistants required to realise the kinds of grand decorative schemes at which Bonzanigo excelled. The allegorical trophies representing sculpture and architecture placed alongside these portraits lend credence to this intriguing hypothesis. Bonzanigo’s portrait of Victor Amadeus III of around 1790–95 (Palazzo Madama, Turin, inv. 1071/L) has a comparable composition to the present panel, showing a profile portrait of the king framed by twelve portrait medallions depicting members of the royal family. Thus it perhaps follows logically that the present panel shows its protagonist, or patriarch, surrounded by his professional “family”.

The present panel is not listed in the sale of Bonzanigo’s stock after his death in 1820. It surfaced on the art market in Milan in the final years of the nineteenth century when it was acquired by the renowned antiquarian, collector and dealer Moisé Guggenheim (1837–1914), who took it to Venice. There the work was seen by Alessandro Vesme (1854–1923), head of the Pinacoteca di Torino and Soprintendente degli Oggetti d’Arte of Piemonte and Liguria. Vesme included the panel in his seminal L’Arte in Piemonte dal XVI al XVIII secolo, noting its status as a masterwork within Bonzanigo’s oeuvre. In 1897, Guggenheim sold the work to a British dealer, Sir George Donaldson (1845–1925) in 1897. Donaldson in turn sold Bonzanigo’s self-portrait to Sir Lionel Faudel-Phillips 1887–1941), who resided at Balls Park, Hertfordshire, and in whose family the work remained.