Fine Matched Pair of 19th Century Italian Scagliola Siena Marble Columns

Fine matched pair of 19th Century (c.1860) Italian Scagliola columns in imitation of Siena marble, of excellent quality, colour and proportions being 40cm in Diameter. Available for purchase together as listed or separately if wished. Provenance:- The personal collection of Sabih Aykoler and Fello Atkinson These columns, clearly made in the same workshop, are a matched pair due to their differing heights but identical diameters. They are 40cm in diameter and the taller column is 119cm in height. The shorter column is 113cm tall. As such they are available for purchase as a matched pair or could be sold separately. Scagliola is the process of creating sophisticated imitations of marbles using a combination of plaster of Paris, glues and pigments. The best examples as per out pair are then painstakingly painted with veining and the other surface treatments necessary to imitate finely figured marbles, providing all of the decorative appeal without the weight associated with the use of natural marble. It is often wrongly assumed that the use of scagliola indicates cost saving when in many cases this was not the case at all. Scagliola columns were often featured in the most prestigious stately home interiors. One particularly fine example of this, incorporating scagliola columns that imitate Siena marble as with the present pieces, is the dining room in Spencer House in London. The present columns are ideal for use displaying busts or vases and it is therefore no surprise that they found favour with the art collectors Sabih Aykoler and Fello Atkinson. They were personal friends of the great British artist Patrick Heron and owned a number of his paintings amongst other treasures. Mr Aykoler was Turkish by birth and worked for the BBC for many years and if these columns could talk they would have wonderful tales to tell about the visitors to the house in which they were displayed.