Andrea Branzi designed the present textile for the “Anti-Design” collective Archizoom Associati in 1967. The group sought to upturn notions of “good” design and taste and re-imagined ways of living through their architectural and product designs. “Farfalla di Battista” was the only textile ever designed and retailed by the group, and the present lot is a prototype from the production. Whereas the final product was manufactured by Poltronovo (where Ettore Sottsass was art director) in synthetic weave, the present prototype is made of screen-printed linen.

Examples of “Farfalla di Battista” are in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.