Italian Cherry-Wood and Porphyry Center Table

Published in Christie’s Auction Catalogue for Sir John Pope-Hennessy’s Art Collection

This table was in Sir John Pope-Hennessy and Michael Mallon’s apartment in the Palazzo Canigiani on Via dei Bardi, Florence. The blogger and his partner met them, as well as Countess Alessandra Pandolfini, at a lunch at the apartment of Fausto Calderai (30 September 1993). A few months later, Sir John and Michael invited the blogger and his partner to their apartment for lunch (23 February 1994) and afternoon tea (28 April 1994). The blogger and his partner, in turn, invited Sir John and Michael to afternoon tea at their apartment on Via Ghibellina (27 June 1994). Unfortunately, the day was extraordinarily hot and Sir John was too unwell to come. (He died that October at the age of 80.) In the end, tea and cucumber sandwiches were served to Michael, Andrea Bacchi (an art historian), Alberto Batisti (a musicologist), Jack and Thekla Clark (she wrote a memoir of her friendships with W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman), Enrico Colle (an art historian), Marco Pupo (an organist), Michael Rocke (an historian), and Dimitri Zikos (an art historian). The omission of Fausto Calderai from the guest list, whether intentional or an oversight, was a faux-pas.

 There are two kinds of people in the world: those who make better hosts than guests and those who make better guests than hosts. The blogger is among the latter.

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The blogger and his partner lived at Via dei Neri No. 6 from 1993 to 1994, then at Via Ghibellina No. 125 from 1994 to 1995.