I found this door and carvings in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence Italy. What kind of wood is it?
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I found this door and carvings in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence Italy. What kind of wood is it?
20170407-0604.jpg
20170407-0592.jpg20170407-0598.jpg
I am voting Walnut, saw so much beautifully done Walnut paneling in the Galleria Accademia in Florence (yeah, pretty sick I am looking at the millwork in a art museum). That's some pretty nice carving there also..
Mahogany? Just a guess.
Scott Vroom
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
Walnut would be my guess also, but there must be more to it than that. The walnut that I get here (Houston TX) is much darker and so hard that it is virtually impossible to carve. Is there some sub-species that I should be asking for?
Well Walnut lightens and gets redder in color with exposure to sunlight, I would guess the Walnut in Italy is not a species typically available in the US. Possibly English Walnut
Last edited by Robert LaPlaca; 07-16-2017 at 10:57 AM.
Considering the age, history and location walnut is the most likely wood, it's hard to tell.
Here is a higher resolution picture of a bench that was in the same room. I think that it is the same wood as the door. Do the worm holes tell us anything about the wood species?
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The silk like grain threads looks like it could be birch,and it does grow there. Since it's got some worm holes in wood that is not sap wood, I don't think its mahogany.
The doors are not usually as old as the building.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
I don't think the builders of the Palazzo Pitti (which was built between the 15th and 17th century and became the residence of the king of Italy in the late 1800's) would have settled for birch even though it shows some similarities (correct me if I'm wrong), it had to be a much more precious wood. Mahogany was unknown to them at the time (Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492), it became the wood of choice for the upper class during the Victorian era in England and later Germany and North America. Historians to the rescue.
Mahogany was being used in England in the first half of 18th century. Some say as early as 1730. I can't agree that birch was not fine enough for carving, ...fine china is made from clay!
Tom, this is all your fault you should have brought your block plane
One thing for sure, Florence has some of the most impressive stone and wood carving..
Not sure on your sample but it may be faux finished to match the bench. We spent a good amount of time in Paris and I saw a lot of doors like that where the faux finish was worn off lower couple of feet and the top was so well done it was hard to tell it wasn't real wood. The grain on the vertical member of the third pic looks Faux to me. I can't imagine a door could last in the elements for even 100 years with a clear finish. It would have been neglected by some generation I'd expect.