Room 4 - Dining Room

The Dining Room, adjacent to the Gallery, was adorned with green silk curtains and overdoors depicting hunting scenes, painted in monochrome and antique style by Carlo Brunelli.

On the walls of the room, the king had placed portraits of his best hunters, Gennaro Rossi and Domenico Salerno, together with his pedigree dogs. However, during the Savoy family’s reign, the original paintings were replaced with four paintings by Gaetano Cusati, titled: Allegory of Spring: trophies of weapons and flowers Allegory of Autumn: flowers, fruit and pottery, with figures of peasants; Allegory of the Sea: fish and seafood with fishermen; Farmers, roosters, vegetables and donkey.

As for the furnishings in the room, on the ceiling was a crystal chandelier with an 18-lumen metal frame; on the walls, there were two rectangular mahogany console tables with marble tops, covered in antique green and with fluted column feet, embellished with gilded rosette appliqués. These are now preserved in the Capodimonte Museum.

In the centre of the room was a hole, now marked on the floor with a white oval, through which the Mathematical Table was lifted. Today, only one specimen of this engineering work remains, and it is kept in the Chinese Palace of Palermo.

The table, built in 1790 by the cabinetmaker Antonio Ross and the mechanic Gesualdo Scognamiglio from Portici, allowed food to be lifted directly from the kitchens on the ground floor by means of a complex system of pulleys and ropes.

To set the table, a set of “Greek-style” tableware was made for the king in 1796, and another in Saxon porcelain for the queen.

In order to recreate the symmetry so much sought after by Hackert and the Bourbon, on the opposite side of the Dining Room is another symmetrical room furnished in the same manner, serving as an antechamber.