Pietro Piffetti
Turin 17/08/1701 - Turin 20/05/1777
Piffetti was undoubtedly the most famous wood artist of Turin, where he was born and lived his entire life, except for a short period of apprenticeship in Rome in his youth. At 30 he became the main cabinet-maker of the House of Savoy at the time of Charles Emmanuel III (1730-73).
He left his mark thanks to his eclectic style which included the use of the most diverse materials in addition to wood, like mother of pearl, tortoise and ivory.
As concerns the themes of his decorations, Piffetti would rework existing etchings bending them as required by the customers, inventing a procedure which made him more than just a craftsman, reaching such peaks of figurative culture worthy of great painters or sculptors.
His masterpieces include the splendid Altar frontal for the Turin church of San Filippo Neri (today at MIAAO), some furniture shown at Museo Accorsi – Ometto, but also a signed and dated desk on display at Museo Correr of Venice and the so-called “Piffetti library” from 1879 housed at Rome’s Quirinale, carried there from Villa della Regina at the request of Humbert I of Italy, who had moved to the new capital of the Kingdom of Italy.
