AN IMPORTANT BUREAU BOOKCASE

Details

GIO PONTI; ITALY
AN IMPORTANT BUREAU BOOKCASE
1950, executed by cabinetmaker Giordano Chiesa, Ferrara root-walnut, with brass sabots, the doors decorated with applied lithographed paper perspectives of Venice and foliate decoration by Piero Fornasetti, the superstructure wired for internal lighting and with recess containing German bisque ceramic sculpture
86½ in. (220 cm.) high; 39¾ in. (101 cm.) wide; 22¾ in. (58 cm.) deep; figure 48 in. (122 cm.) high

Literature

Ugo la Pietra, Gio Ponti, New York, 1995, p.161, pl.342 (illustrated)
Patrick Mauriès, Piero Fornasetti, Designer of Dreams, London, 1991, p.53 (illustrated)
Andrea Branzi, ed., Il Design Italiano degli Anni '50, Milan, 1985, p.111, pl.322 (illustrated)
Domus 256, 1951, p.31 (illustrated in-situ)

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The bureau-bookcase at the core of this collection represents one of the earliest collaborations by Ponti with his young protégé, Piero Fornasetti, to produce unique furniture for a private patron. Made by Ponti's dedicated cabinetmaker, Giordano Chiesa, the lower doors feature a replicated aerial perspective of Venice by the noted late-fifteenth-century printmaker Jacopo de' Barbari, an image selected by Fornasetti. With structure designed by Ponti, and surface decorated by Fornasetti, the bureau-bookcase, a form subsequently reassessed throughout the following decade, endures as the signature illustration of their collaboration.

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