Large Italian Grand Tour Style Handpainted & Gilded Obelisk of the Minerva With Semi-Precious Stone Specimens

Details

Description

Large Italian Grand Tour style Classical Faux Marble Handpainted Obelisk of the Minerva (Minerveo), with gilded elephant and 26 natural … Read more Large Italian Grand Tour style Classical Faux Marble Handpainted Obelisk of the Minerva (Minerveo), with gilded elephant and 26 natural polished semi-precious stone specimens.
This striking piece is a monumental specimen marble-inlaid obelisk, a grand decorative object that blends classical architecture with the natural beauty of geology. It is designed in the Grand Tour style, a tradition inspired by the 17th-century European custom of traveling to Italy to collect fine art and antiquities.
The obelisk is supported by a magnificent gilded elephant, a motif directly inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's famous "Elephant and Obelisk" statue in Rome. The tapered features 26 polished, semi-precious stone specimens—such as malachite, agate, and jasper—meticulously inlaid into a rich, dark wooden framework.
This piece represents a mid-20th-century revival of Renaissance techniques. It serves as both a botanical study of minerals and a piece of "architectural furniture," designed to bring a sense of history and "illusionistic" baroque flair to a room.


Some useful web information about the original artifact monument:
L’Obelisco della Minerva: la storia curiosa di un elefante di pietra al centro dell’incantevole piazza della Minerva.

In the centre of the enchanting Piazza della Minerva stands this small red granite obelisk dating back to the 6th century BC, originally located near the Iseo Campense, the shrine devoted to Isis and her spouse Serapis in the Campus Martius.

After falling down, the obelisk remained hidden in the ground until 1665, when it was accidentally found by some Dominican friars during work on the foundations of the wall enclosing the garden of the basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

The obelisk is only about 5.5 metres high, but reaches 12 metres with the cross and the famous elephant-shaped base designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and executed in 1667 by his apprentice Ercole Ferrata.

The Minerva Obelisk: the curious story of a stone elephant
"And it cries out, with its trunk turned backwards, Dominican friars, here you stand!".

Through Rome's most famous little elephant, Bernini manifests all his frustration in the curious story that accompanied the construction of one of the most beloved monumental complexes for Romans and tourists alike.

Pope Alexander VII Chigi decided to place it in front of the church of the Dominican fathers and for this he evaluated several proposals that would allow him to choose the most suitable base to support it.

One of the projects presented was that of the Dominican friar Domenico Paglia: the monument was to rest on six small hills - recalling the coat of arms of the Chigi family, but it might have appeared too self-celebratory.

The Pontiff wanted a work that would rather recall the exaltation of Divine Wisdom: 'Alexander VII dedicated this ancient obelisk, a monument to the Egyptian Athena, unearthed and placed in the square, once of Minerva now of the Mother of God, in the year of Salvation, 1667.' He therefore chose the design of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the greatest architect and sculptor of Baroque Rome, who proposed the construction of a statue in the shape of an elephant. The animal was supposed to symbolise strength, also evoked by the inscription on the plinth, which reads: 'Anyone who observes the sculpted images of Egyptian wisdom on the obelisk carried by the elephant, the strongest of beasts, realises that it takes a strong mind to carry a solid wisdom.' See less