Wall decoration

1776 · Villa Poggio Imperiale, Arcetri, Florence

mythological

The picture shows the wall decoration in the room in the southwest corner of the west wing in the Villa Poggio Imperiale. This room is fascinating for its exquisite grotesque decoration covering the full height of the walls and the greater part of the vault. Its lively, symmetrical, fragile-looking motifs include griffins, masks, baskets of fruit, animals, garlands, rosettes, and other delicate plant forms.

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About the Artist

Tommaso Gherardini

1715 – 1797

Italian painter. He was a pupil of Vincenzo Meucci in Florence. He was much appreciated by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo for his neoclassicist taste. In particular he introduced into Florence new types of decoration, the so-called Pompeian style and the fake bas-relief. From the 1740s he participated in the decoration of villas and palaces in Florence and its environment. He painted a hall of the Gallery of the Sufficing and also in the Imperial palace of Vienna. From 1769 to 1777 he painted a series of frescoes in the Villa Doggie Imperial, near Florence, together with Giuliano Traballesi and Giuseppe del Moro.

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