Works of Art from The Giuseppe Rossi Collection Sold to Benefit a Charity

Works of Art from

The Giuseppe Rossi Collection

Sold to Benefit a Charity

24 September – 15 October 2020 I Online

Christie’s London – Announce the sale of Works of Art from The Giuseppe Rossi Collection, Sold to Benefit a Charity.  The collection charts the evolution of European style, taste and design during the 18th century from the Baroque to neoclassicism totaling 148 lots and includes:  Italian and French furniture, ormolu-mounted Chinese and European porcelain, Old Master paintings and drawings, silver, clocks, and French, German, Italian and Chinese ceramics.   

Dottor Giuseppe Rossi (1914-1989) is acknowledged as one of Italy’s greatest post war connoisseur collectors and most prestigious antique dealers, acquiring works from collections such as that of King Umberto II and the Rothschild family. He was acknowledged as having an exceptional eye and built one of the 20^th century’s most important collections of 18^th century decorative arts.

Born in Turin to a family of cabinet makers at the outbreak of the First World War, it was undoubtedly this heritage which inspired what would become a lifelong passion. Whilst working for the family firm, he initially studied business, graduating in 1937 and taking a job with a paper manufacturer. Following military service during the Second World War, Rossi re-joined the family atelier working alongside his father and sister, Maria Luisa. It was then he began to focus on collecting and dealing in earnest, leasing the Palazzo of the Marchese Carrassi del Villar on Piazza San Carlo, Turin, from the late 1940s as a prestigious location for his burgeoning business. (Illustrated left), A Louis XV Ormolu Clock mounted with a Meissen Commedia dell’arte family (estimate £15,000-25,000).

Rossi rapidly developed a reputation for excellence, supplying museums and collectors alike and working with other renowned dealers such as Mallet, Bernheimer and the celebrated Pietro Accorsi – the latter connection evidenced by lot 4 in this sale, a splendid neoclassical commode, attributed to the Savoia court cabinet maker Giuseppe Viglione, which bears an Accorsi label. Rossi’s reputation was not only based on the objects he sold but on the renowned private collection he was building for his own pleasure.  The collection demonstrated his dedicated focus on the development of the decorative arts during the 18^th century, both in Italy and the wider continent. Following his death in 1989, the gravity of the collection Rossi assembled was illustrated by a landmark sale of works, which realised in excess of £20,000,000. (Illustrated right), a Walnut bureau cabinet ‘trumeau’, (estimate £15,000-25,000). (Illustrated below left), a pair of north Italian white-painted and parcel-gilt pliants possibly by Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo, Turin, circa 1780, (estimate £5,000-8,000)

Adrian Hume-Sayer, Director & Head of Sale, Private & Iconic Collections, comments: ‘We are thrilled to have been entrusted with the sale of this remarkable collection which will be offered for sale online from our international headquarters in London.  One of Italy’s most revered connoisseurs, Giuseppe Rossi’s name continues to resonate with international collectors some thirty years after his death.  We are delighted that the proceeds from this auction will go to support important charitable works in Turin, in line with Miss Rossi’s wishes’.