Attributed to Icilio Federico Joni (Italian 1866-1946). A pair of Italian giltwood and tempera...

Attributed to Icilio Federico Joni (Italian 1866-1946). A pair of Italian giltwood and tempera book covers or 'Tavolette di Biccherna' in Renaissance style, with steel mounts, one decorated with panels of scrolling foliage, with seven Sienese shields and an inscription and the date '1475', the other with conforming foliage panels and a standing courtly male figure holding a sword and a feather, late 19th / early 20th century, joined with a leather binding each 38 x 28cm, mounted as one in a glazed giltwood frame.

Provenance:

By repute, the estate of the late L. P. Hartley.

Purchased from Sotheby's, Billingshurst, 2nd March 1995.

Icilio Federico Joni was a Sienese painter and restorer who produced imitations of the wooden panel bindings (tavolette della biccherna) used to cover the accounts of the Commune of Siena from the middle of the 13th to the end of the 17th centuries.