425 - Egisto CAJANI (a Florentine sculptor born in 1832 and active during the last third of the 19th century) and his workshop.

Egisto CAJANI (a Florentine sculptor born in 1832 and active during the last third of the 19th century) and his workshop. A blackened carved wooden secretary desk with four drawers and a drop-down panel. The drop-down panel reveals an oak compartment with two drawers. The interior of the drop-down panel is lined with dark leather. Rich carved ornamentation in bas-relief and high relief featuring cut-out leather motifs, reclining chimeras, scrollwork, toruses, and faces. Oak frame. Front legs in a spinning top shape. Stamped twice on the back within an oval: “Egisto Cajani Intagliatore Firenze.” Also bears a partial label on the back with the address 4 Rue Nationale in Florence. Florence, last third of the 19th century. (Some damage and minor losses; one restored handle; original marble top likely missing; no key) Height: 141 cm - Width: 74 cm - Depth: 42 cm. Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts and in the craft of engraving in the workshops of Angiolo Barbetti and later Francesco Morini, Egisto Gajani was one of the most famous woodcarvers active in Florence during the last third of the 19th century. In the early 1860s, he opened a small workshop that would quickly expand as orders poured in. By 1867, he employed as many as fourteen workers and several cabinetmakers. From that time onward, he participated in the major international and world’s fairs of his era (Dublin, Philadelphia, Paris, Turin, Venice). He worked for wealthy Italian patrician families and for a discerning European clientele. He also received several official commissions from the Italian government. He was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence beginning in 1870 and was actively involved with the School for Woodcarvers, Cabinetmakers, and Joiners in Florence. Despite the renown of his studio on Via Nazionale, he went bankrupt in 1888. His work is now featured in museum collections (e.g., a richly carved frame from 1870 housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; a carved walnut mantelpiece from 1888 housed at the Museo Stibbert in Florence).