Andrea Brustolon

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Brustolon's carved concolle for vases (Ca' Rezzonico, Venice)

Andrea Brustolon (20 July 1662 – 25 October 1732)[1] was an Italian sculptor in wood. He is known for his furnishings in the Baroque style and devotional sculptures.[1]

Biography

He was trained in a vigorous local tradition of sculpture in his native

Basilica of St Peter's
.

National Museum in Warsaw
.
Candelabra in San Trovaso Venice

His furniture included armchairs with figural sculptures that take the place of front legs and armrest supports, inspired by his experience of

blackamoor
gueridons, endlessly reproduced since the eighteenth century, found their models in Brustolon's work.

His secular commissions from Pietro Venier, of the Venier di San Vio family (a suite of forty sculptural pieces that can be seen in the Sala di Brustolon of the Ca' Rezzonico, Venice), from the Pisani of Strà, and from the Correr di San Simeone families encourage the attribution to him of some extravagantly rich undocumented moveable furniture. Andrea Brustolon's elaborate carved furniture aspired towards the condition of sculpture, such as the Dutch bases for console tables which look like enlargements of the work of the two Van Vianens, Paulus and Adam, perhaps the greatest Dutch silversmiths of the period. These carved pieces display the baroque tendency to develop a form three-dimensionally in space.

Brustolon's walnut, boxwood and ebony pieces transcend ordinary functional limitations of furniture; they are constructed of elaborately carved figures. The framework of Brustolon's chairs, side tables and gueridons were carved as gnarled tree branches, with further supports of putti and moors carved in ebony. Backrests of the chairs, which were never touched in the rigidly upright posture that contemporary etiquette demanded, were carved with allegories of vanity, fire and music, etc.

The most extravagant piece delivered for

Pietro Venier
was a large side table and vase-stand of box and ebony, designed as a single ensemble to display rare imported Japanese porcelain vases. The eclectic allegories include Hercules with the Hydra and Cerberus, moors and reclining river-gods (see ref.).

For the

Palazzo Quirinale) with flowers, fruit, leaves and branches to symbolize the twelve months of the year. Work by Brustolon is at the Villa Pisani at Stra
.

In 1685 Brustolon returned to the house where he was born at Belluno,

Justus Liebig (Liebigshaus, Frankfort). An altarpiece, c. 1720, is at the Victoria and Albert Museum
, London.

He died in Belluno in 1732.

Brustolon had many imitators working in his style, both contemporary, and later. The Venetian sculptor Valentino Panciera Besarel (1829–1902) made upholstered armchairs in the Brustolon manner from the 1860s.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Andrea Brustolon". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  2. ^ Leahy, Ann (20 July 2021). "This Day in History: July 20". Italian Art History. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  3. ^ "Scola Levantina and Scola Luzzatto" Archived 21 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine Save Venice Inc
  4. bishop of Ferrara in the Museum of the Capuchin Fathers of San Giuseppe in Bologna, was attributed to Brustolon in 2002: Nazzareno Manganello (17 July 2002). "Un crocifisso inedito di Andrea Brustolon". AIDA - Associazione Internazionale del Diritto dell'Arte. Archived from the original
    on 27 November 2007.
  5. ^ Besarel, whose bust of Brustolon (1894) is at the Museo Correr, was himself commemorated in an exhibition in Verona, 2002 (exhibition catalogue by Massimo de Grassi, Valentino Panciera Besarel, Verona, 2002) and was the subject of a monograph, Giovanni Angelini, Gli Scultori Panciera Besarel (Belluno 2002).
  • Biasuz G., and Buttignon M. G., 1969. Andrea Brustolon (Istituto Veneto Arti Grafiche) 1969
  • Gonzales-Palacios, Alvar, 1967. Il mobilio del '700 veneto
  • Semenzato, G., 1967. La scultura veneta del Seicento e del Settecento (Turin: Alfieri)
  • Valcanover, F., 1960. Indice delle opere d'arte della città e provincia di Belluno (Venice)
  • Biasuz, G., and E. Lacchin, 1928. Brustolon, preface by U. Ometti (Venice: Zanetti)

External links

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