Circa 1930 German Side Table

The January 1935 issue of Plaisir de France featured two dining tables by Jansen. The editors saw fit to present the same photograph of one of the two once again in the book Decoration de France, a 1949 compilation of articles and images previously published in the magazine. This photograph shows the table before an antique Chinese screen, extravagantly set with Lalique glass, and a fantastical Misia...

Every contour and plane of this exquisite tray-top, mahogany table on wheels is outlined with glinting brass stringing — a hallmark of Russian cabinetry in the late 18th and early 19...

This table’s bold, graphic, and geometrical marquetry in satinwood and rosewood recalls the paintings of Bridget Riley and other 1960s Op Art artists. The patterning even extends to...

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...