Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo - A North Italian microcarving portrait relief miniature attributed to Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo

Date	1785 circa
Period	1750-1850, 18th century
Origin	Turin
Medium	Carved, Fruitwood, Kingwood, Limewood, Tulipwood, Woods, Ebony
Dimensions	21.5 x 19 cm (8¹/₂ x 7¹/₂ inches)
Gallery	Burzio

Description
Technical

A North Italian fruitwood, walnut, ebony , boxwood, tulipwood and kingwood microcarving portrait relief miniature attributed to Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (1745-1820), depicting a standing Mars with cuirass, feathered helmet and sword, holding a spear with his right and a shield on his left hand, within an oval in an octagonal interlacing frame with beads and carved flowerheads to the corners, in a rectangular beaded frame, insisted in a glazed ebony frame with carved flowerhead in each side and each corner.

Date: 1785 circa
Period: 1750-1850, 18th century
Origin: Turin
Medium: Carved, Fruitwood, Kingwood, Limewood, Tulipwood, Woods, Ebony
Signature: M A R S (just shadows of the missing letters). Please note that the same Mars is depicted in one of the eight legs of the only two documented console tables by Bonzanigo, executed in 1785 for Stupinigi castle, still in situ.
Dimensions: 21.5 x 19 cm (8¹/₂ x 7¹/₂ inches)
Provenance: Private collection
Literature: ●Claudio Bertolotto,Vittoria Villani, Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo: Intaglio minuto e grande decorazione, Lindau, 1990, p.202 fig.31.2; and Tav.XIX.
●Arnaldi di Balmi, Merlotti, Il «trofeo militare» di Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo, Allemandi, 2011
●Franca Dalmasso e Claudio Bertolotto, Palmieri in Cornici di Bonzanigo, Antologia di Belle Arti, Il Neoclassicismo, III, Turin, 1992, pp. 80-84.