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Mama Mia! 400-Year-Old Table Found in Pizzeria

Expected to fetch $2M at upcoming auction

By Caroline Miller,  Newser Staff

Posted Nov 29, 2007 6:15 PM CST
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(Newser) – A 17th-century cabinet expected to fetch up to $2 million at auction has an unlikely provenance: its long-missing bottom half was discovered outside the bathrooms at a pizza parlor. The Telegraph reports that the cabinet, which depicts St. Peter's Square and other images of Rome, was missing the carved wooden table that it stands upon for at least 20 years before a Sotheby's specialist located it at a pizzeria in northern England.

"It’s arguably the most important piece of Roman baroque furniture that has ever appeared on the market," says the auctioneer. The missing table, nearly identical to two pieces in the collection of the Danish royal family, belongs to the York Conservation Trust, from which the pizzeria was renting space. The cabinet and the table are now reunited for the first time since World War II.

A companion table to a larger cabinet already in the possession of Sotheby's, the table was discovered in an Ask Pizzeria in York by the Sotheby's head himself.
A companion table to a larger cabinet already in the possession of Sotheby's, the table was discovered in an Ask Pizzeria in York by the Sotheby's head himself.   (Shutterstock.com)
The near-ancient wooden table was serendipitously discovered in an Ask pizzeria, in York, by Sotheby's head, Mario Tavella.
The near-ancient wooden table was serendipitously discovered in an Ask pizzeria, in York, by Sotheby's head, Mario Tavella.   (%uFFFD Sothebys)
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