Sumptuous lots from Palazzo Volpi, the Renaissance palace on the Grand Canal in Venice and birthoplace of the Venice Film Festival, will come under the hammer at Sotheby’s in Paris on February 28. A total of 200 lots of furniture and works of art from the collection of Count and Countess Volpi of Misurata will include palatial Roman tables, ballroom banquettes, sopraporta panels in the styleof Jacopo Sansovino, Wagner sofas and Venetian mirrors. They will include items from the palace’s piano nobile, the main floor containing the portego (a typically Venetian reception room), the ballroom and the music room. Highlights will include a set of 14 Venetian giltwood chairs, a pair of Italian giltwood side tables and a Venetian Japanese style console.
The magnificent Renaissance residence was acquired in 1917 by Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata (1877-1947), founder of the Venice International Film Festival after whom the Volpi Cup prize for the best actor and actress is still named. Over the course of his lifetime and the generation that has followed, the Count and his family hosted some of the greatest names in the 20th century in the opulent rooms of the palazzo including Winston Churchill, Coco Chanel, Josephine Baker, King Fouad of Egypt, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Andy Warhol, Cary Grant, Paul Newman, Barbara Hutton, Elizabeth Taylor, Gina Lollobrigida, Harrison Ford and George Clooney.
