Prie-Dieu

1759

Pietro Piffetti
Italian, c. 1700-1777
Turin, Italy

As the foremost Italian cabinetmaker of the 18th century, Pietro Piffetti was in the service of the royal House of Savoy for over 40 years. This prie-dieu—a kneeling bench used at home for personal devotion—was most likely made for the youngest son of King Carl Emmanuel III of Sardinia, for use in the Palace of Venaria, the family’s hunting lodge outside Turin. A door in the center of the prie-dieu conceals a small cabinet for a rosary and prayer books, and the drawer at the base would have held a padded kneeler. The interior of the cabinet retains its original pink paint; popular in the mid-18th century, the color pink did not yet have the feminine associations it does today.

Piffetti’s works are remarkable for their technical skill. The surface of this prie-dieu is made up of thin pieces (veneers) of boxwood and ebony assembled to form an intricate geometric pattern—a technique known as parquetry.

Status: On View, Gallery 233
Department: Applied Arts of Europe

Artist: Pietro Piffetti
Title: Prie-Dieu
Place: Turin (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1759
Medium: Boxwood and ebony
Dimensions: 86.7 × 77.8 × 58.5 cm (34 1/8 × 30 5/8 × 23 in.)
Credit Line: Mary Waller Langhorne Memorial Fund; purchased with funds provided by Kay and Frederick Krehbiel; Irish Gala Purchase Fund; purchased with funds provided by John W. and Patricia O'Brien and Gayle Tilles; Neville and John Bryan Fund
Reference Number: 2016.117
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/179971/manifest.json

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.