In 1950 the Italian painter Duilio (Dubé) Barnabé began working with Fontana Arte, collaborating on a series of works for which the artist employed the technique of verre églomisé. Primarily comprising large bowls, plaques and tabletops of varied forms, Barnabé’s work for Fontana Arte often featured still life or figurative forms with indeterminate, monochromatic backgrounds, recalling the work of Giorgio Morandi, whom Barnabé had studied under at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna, and the influence of Cubism, which he had discovered during a trip to Paris in 1947.