Lot Essay
We would like to thank Brian Kish for his assistance with the cataloguing and note of this lot.
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A MIRROR, CIRCA 1946
Details
GIOVANNI GARIBOLDI (1908-1971)
A MIRROR, CIRCA 1946
parcel-gilt, carved and painted wood, mirrored glass
30 ¾ in. (78 cm.) square
A MIRROR, CIRCA 1946
parcel-gilt, carved and painted wood, mirrored glass
30 ¾ in. (78 cm.) square
Literature
R. Aloi, L' Arredamento Moderno, Milan, 1949, pp. 168, 170, 575 for illustrations of similar models.
Special notice
This Lot is transferred to Christie’s Redstone Post-Sale Facility in Long Island City after 5.00 pm on the last day of the sale. They will be available at Redstone on the following Monday.
Property may be transferred at Christie’s discretion following the sale
and we advise that you contact Purchaser Payments on +1 212 636 2495 to confirm your property’s location at any given time.
Further details
Giovanni Gariboldi became the main designer of ceramics at Richard Ginori, after Gio Ponti's gradual departure commencing in 1931. Initially trained as an architect, he also sometimes turned to designing furniture that was in sync with the prevailing Milanese ambient and proved very successful.
In fact he was a frequent collaborator of another great Milan architect and designer, Paolo Buffa, whose furniture he was commissioned to embellish with elegant flourishes in intarsia, metal engravings, handles, and sabots. Gariboldi's experience in fine-tuning those brilliant minutae resurfaced much later into some large scale furniture series. His designs stand out in virtue of their pictorial approach. They do not draw attention to the tectonics of function but offer instead an anthology of poetic associations and seductive contrasts as demonstrated in this pair of bar cabinets. While hefty in scale, they draw a certain lightness from their constituent materials such as expanses of parchment and pale fruit woods as well as from their motifs and patterns which are thoughtfully evolved from late 18th century Lombardian cabinetry.
In fact he was a frequent collaborator of another great Milan architect and designer, Paolo Buffa, whose furniture he was commissioned to embellish with elegant flourishes in intarsia, metal engravings, handles, and sabots. Gariboldi's experience in fine-tuning those brilliant minutae resurfaced much later into some large scale furniture series. His designs stand out in virtue of their pictorial approach. They do not draw attention to the tectonics of function but offer instead an anthology of poetic associations and seductive contrasts as demonstrated in this pair of bar cabinets. While hefty in scale, they draw a certain lightness from their constituent materials such as expanses of parchment and pale fruit woods as well as from their motifs and patterns which are thoughtfully evolved from late 18th century Lombardian cabinetry.