A RARE FLORENTINE SCAGIOLA PANEL BY LAMBERTO CRISTIANO GORI SIGNED AND DATED EITHER 1752 OR 1782 A Scagliola panel of an Italianate harbour scene, the foreground with merchants and portside figures, castle tower with soldiers beneath, s beyond, signed to the side of a box slightly indistinctly, Lambertus Cristianus Gori, Fec: Florenze Anno Dom 1782 (or 1752), ink inventory () number to reverse, in a later swept gilt frame, provenance as per handwritten note to versovisible panel 37 x 54.5cm, the frame 53 x 71cmProvenance:The collection of His Royal Highness Prince Georg of Denmark 1975Lamberto Cristiano Gori (1730-1801) was apprenticed to the monk Don Enrico Hugford of Vallombrosa, regarded as one of the leading exponents of the art of scagiola in the 18th century. John Fleming in his article 'The Hugfords of Florence' (Connoisseur, October 1955) writes that Hugford's work displays technical brilliance, his hand revealed by the charming but unvarying colour scheme of salmon pink, pale blue, light sandy brown and smokey grey, which gives his panels the appearance of gouache paintings under thick glass, their surfaces being exceptionally smooth and translucent. In his technical mastery Gori rivalled his master but, unlike him, his work tended to be less inspired by known observable landscaped and more by a leaning toward capricci- freer extemporizing interpretations of the scenes around him.In his article 'Masters of the Art of Scagliola', Country Life, September 29, 1994, Jonathan Cook suggested that Gori was drawing more on the painterly styles of artists such as Vernet and Pannini. The imaginary Mediterranean view of this panel shows similarities in the soft colouring and in the treatment of the figures with the central scene on a pair of scagliola table tops at Woburn Abbey (Bedfordshire) dated 1762 and made also by Lamberto Cristiano Gori andmissioned by the Marquess of Tavistock, eldest son of the 4th Duke of Bedford. For a pair of harbour scenes with similar treatment of the water and buildings, signed by Lamberto Gori, see lot 39 from the The Collection of Prince and Princess Henry de la Tour d'Auvergne Lauraguais sold Sotheby's, London, 3 May 2012, 27,500.