Carved wooden said “Grotto” stool with dolphin head and scallop shell motifs.
Cave furniture continues the tradition of amateur cabinets and cave design from the Renaissance period. Then came the 18th century Rococo period, which made shells one of its major themes, and even more so the taste for follies, pavilions, pagodas, and grottoes.
Grotto furniture is characteristic of the 19th-century fashion for fantasy furniture. It responded to the increasingly widespread trend for winter gardens or spaces recreating fantastical marine fauna or an unusual atmosphere.
This furniture reached its greatest expression in Venice at the end of the 19th century. Grotto furniture essentially consists of four basic elements:
– Scallops
– Seahorses; some depictions make them resemble sea dragons or simply horses’ heads.
– Dolphins, which are often depicted as fish with large, round heads.
– Triton’s conch shells; the Greek sea god often depicted blowing into a conch shell to announce his arrival or calm the rough seas. The name triton has been used to refer to some mollusks, such as the conch.
Despite the varying additions of crabs, starfish, mussels, and various conchs or corals, there seems to be a general uniformity to this style.
This suggests that cave furniture was designed and produced by a small number of workshops.
Italy
19th century
Height: 68 cm
Width: 43 cm
