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1930s Italian Bench

Name: 1930s Italian Bench
Brand: Pier Luigi Colli
Price: 7603.79 CHF
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

About the Item

This 1930s Italian bench is so over-scaled, and monumental in appearance, that it seems to have been made for the large room it was destined, rather than the comfort of a typical sitter. As such, it would function equally well as a low side table or a high cocktail table. We’ll allow the buyer to determine its use. The designer was Pierluigi Colli, and the fabricator Martinotti, the Turin furniture and interior decorating firm that was established in 1831, and exhibited at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition and the 1904 St Louis World’s Fair. Colli’s family owned a textile company that supplied Martinotti with upholstery fabrics, suggesting nepotism had something to do with his being hired as the firm's director in 1926. Nevertheless, he proved himself worthy as a designer and a businessman. Having studied in Paris at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, he befriended leading French designers, and arranged for Martinotti to retail Lalique glass and Jean Perzel lighting. In addition, the quality of their work, and Colli’s dedication to the modern design movement, prompted Carlo Mollino, Gio Ponti, and Gino Levi-Montalcini, among others, to have Martinotti fabricate some of their furniture. Colli’s claim to fame, however, is his own work as a designer, and his ability to master the vocabularies of every trend from Art Deco to midcentury modern. During the Great Depression, when nearly every nation floundered economically, fascist Italy prospered under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. Unlike his fellow dictators Hitler and Stalin, who considered neo-classicism the only suitable style, Mussolini also accommodated modernism, known in Italy as rationalism, the local iteration of the so-called International Style. And this being Italy, both camps acquitted themselves with panache. A proponent of modernism, Colli mastered the monumental sensibility of fascism, and the forms of rationalism, while maintaining the superb craftsmanship he demanded, and employing the luxurious materials he favored. This is seen in our bench, consisting of eight barely intersecting walnut slabs that are veneered with amboyna, and scored on the edges of the top and bottom slabs.

Creator:

Pier Luigi Colli (Designer)

Dimensions:

Height: 17.5 in (44.45 cm)Width: 47 in (119.38 cm)Depth: 22.75 in (57.79 cm)

Style:

Modern (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Other,Wood,Veneer

Place of Origin:

Italy

Period:

1930-1939

Date of Manufacture:

circa 1935

Condition:

Wear consistent with age and use. It was touched up and polished.

Seller Location:

New York, NY

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