Scriban with chinoiserie decoration Venise 18th century

Scriban with arte povera decoration of chinoiserie scenes on a black background in large gold-colored reserves.
It is composed of three rows of drawers and a blind drawer composed of compartments opening by means of the zippers which support the flap. He discovers a green lacquered interior with 8 drawers.

The decoration of this piece of furniture can be attributed to Vizzo, an artist of whom little is known, but who signed a very important double body piece of furniture with great similarities in terms of the painted subjects. By using this comparative method, we find similar decorations on a pair of consoles and a pair of tables kept at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.


Throughout the 18th century, Venice was one of the most important centers for lacquerware. The Venetian lacquerers work with a palette of very bright colors highlighting the curved shapes of the furniture.

While laccatori in other parts of Italy and Europe tended to work with fixed color palettes and a limited number of shapes and designs, their Venetian contemporaries made pieces in a wide range of hues. and forms, even using mixed techniques which sometimes resulted in the creation of legitimate art forms such as lacca povera, which makes Venetian lacca pieces some of the finest and most original ever produced. The inventiveness of the Venetian laccatori is clearly reflected in the cabinet of the current office. In addition to the Chinese-style decoration, the general shape of this room testifies to the dynamism and intercultural dialogues that characterized 18th-century Venice. As mentioned earlier, there are details that suggest that the bancalaro, or cabinetmaker, who produced the current office cabinet was very specifically referring to an Anglo-Dutch model. Yet such continental appropriations are juxtaposed with a distinctively local element, the engraved mirror, another craft for which Venice was particularly renowned throughout Italy and Europe. Most unusual is the reduced scale, which makes this piece a unique example of the synthesis of European and Easter influences with local tastes and practical constraints.


Venice exports its polychrome furniture and is emulated throughout Italy, Rome, Piedmont, Sicily.
If the form changes according to regions and influences, the so-called "figure" decoration remains identical. The chalcography workshops in Venice and those of the Remondini family in Bassano distribute engravings specially designed for furniture ornaments printed on extremely fine paper.
The genre scenes are inspired by the works of Venetian painters such as Ricci, Zucarelli, Canaletto or Guardi. Horsemen, shepherds, characters from the comedia dell'arte accompanied by animals or putti and for the form some Chinese walking in idyllic landscapes of the Arcadian countryside or evolving between architectural elements.