Painted Italian antiques furnish the Cathay bedroom at Vizcaya Museum Most collectors crave certainty, the knowledge that a desirable object can be attributed to an individual of outstanding merit. And for the most part, that's what dealers deliver, except when it comes to Italian painted furniture from the 18th and early 19th centuries. Despite the fine brushwork and creative carpentry, these delectable chairs, consoles, settees, and more are the work of craftsmen whose anonymity has frustrated the most assiduous of scholars.
Flamboyant colors and glamorous gilding make these pieces the eye candy of the antiques world.