Luigi Frullini Pedestal
Luigi Frullini (1839-1897), Florence, Italy dated 1871
This pedestal shows Luigi Frullini’s carving at its most sculptural. The tapering column is divided by winged chimera supports. Each has a snarling lions head, carved tassels, wings, and a body that descents into a clawed foot. Between them, every panel is carved in deep relief in the Renaissance “grotesque” manner.
The 1871 date puts this pedestal two years before the Frullini library suite, table and chairs in this room. Together they show the workshop at the height of its reputation, shortly after Frullini won a medal at the 1867 Paris Exposition.
Luigi Frullini and his Carvings
Frullini’s pieces were carved directly into a large block of wood, rather than built up by gluing small carved pieces onto a flat board. That suits this pedestal, whose chimeras and eagle stand out in very deep relief.
He was the son of a Florentine woodcarver, and at 26 was made an honorary professor at Florence’s Academy of Fine Arts, a rare distinction for someone so young.
Period advertising for Luigi Frullini’s studio displaying a similar pedestal. The footstool and the chair are exact photographic matches to the footstool in this room and one of the four chairs in the Rear Parlor in this house. The pedestal photographed now exists in remnant pieces only, in the possession of a Philadelphia collector.
