A Magnificent Pair of Mirrors

The ori­gins of the Palaz­zo Ser­ris­tori go back to the year 1515, when Loren­zo Aver­ar­do acquired a piece of land on the banks of the Arno. Over the cen­turies, the palaz­zo saw many influ­en­tial vis­i­tors and res­i­dents, such as Gioacchi­no Murat, the Aus­tri­an Count Apponyi, min­is­ter, as well as some fam­i­ly mem­bers of Napoleon Buon­a­parte, Jerome, King of West­phalia, and lat­er King Joseph and his whole family.

In the sec­ond half of the 19^th cen­tu­ry, Count Alfred Ser­ris­tori com­mis­sioned the archi­tect Fal­ciani to restore and restruc­ture the palaz­zo, which his nephew Alber­to Ser­ris­tori con­tin­ued in the fol­low­ing years. Alber­to was a great art col­lec­tor, which was evi­dent in the sump­tu­ous objects in the palaz­zo that had been col­lect­ed over decades. The Palaz­zo Ser­ris­tori main­ly reflects the late 19^th and ear­ly 20^th cen­turies, espe­cial­ly in the splen­did ball­room.

It is a great plea­sure for us to offer two extra­or­di­nar­i­ly designed and exe­cut­ed mir­rors from such a sig­nif­i­cant Flo­ren­tine prove­nance. In the course of time, this pair adorned dif­fer­ent rooms of the Palaz­zo, as doc­u­ment­ed in an accom­pa­ny­ing pho­to book.
The fine carv­ing and col­or­ing as well as the pati­na of the won­der­ful leaf gild­ing under­lines the mirror’s splen­did­ness.

Over­all an ele­gant­ly exe­cut­ed design with cor­nice ele­ments and seg­ments and a stun­ning­ly elab­o­rat­ed dec­o­ra­tion. The arched, orig­i­nal mir­ror plate has a charm­ing pati­na, the mould­ed inner frame with Acan­thus dec­o­ra­tion, foli­ate cor­ner seg­ments in the upper part, and is even­tu­al­ly flanked by two beau­ti­ful flower gar­lands on each side; raised on a gold­en-black, slight­ly re-entrant base, the low­er sides with foli­ate dec­o­rat­ed scrolls sur­mount­ed by two vivid­ly elab­o­rat­ed Aries heads.

The mir­rors are sur­mount­ed by a rich­ly dec­o­rat­ed cor­nice with a mis­chie­vous­ly laugh­ing, very elab­o­rate carved aries head in the cen­ter, flanked by fine­ly, vivid­ly carved Acan­thus leaves.

Mag­nif­i­cent Mir­rors of that kind and aris­to­crat­ic prove­nience are very rare to find on the mar­ket, espe­cial­ly as a pair.