?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(BINDING FORGERY.) Scapecchi, Corrado, attributed to. Pair of panel paintings in imitation of Sienese Tavolette di Biccherna, executed in tempera on wood, with center vignette of noble giving money to 4 men on front panel and large coat of arms on rear panel, both surrounded by ornate gilt pastework and painted floral decoration with repetitions of small coat of arms in corners. Each approximately 491x350 mm; panels slightly warped with mostly minor edgewear, small shallow rectangular recess cut into center of outer edges to suggest missing catch and clasp, similar recesses along inner edges on verso for nonexistent straps to connect the panels, vertical crack in rear panel. Formerly the property of Captain Umberto G. Bellini della Stella, sold as lot 185 in the sale of his art collection at Metropolitan Art and Auction Galleries, 10-11 May 1923, with cuttings from the sale catalogue mounted on the back of the panels. [Np, early 1900s or before?]
Scapecchi (1869-1940?) began his career as an assistant to the Sienese master art forger Icilio Federico Joni (1865-1946), whose productions included fanciful recreations of Tavolette di Biccherna, the painted wooden covers on the medieval municipal account books of Siena. Emigrating to the United States in the early 1900s, Scapecchi established his own studio in New York and became known for imitations of Italian primitive painting and furniture decoration. The elaborate relief decoration on these panels is characteristic of his work.
