Gio Ponti and Luigi Zortea - Design London Wednesday, June 30, 2021 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Private collection, Milan

  • Literature

    Domus, no. 115, July 1937, p. 15 for a similar example; no. 233, February 1949, front cover for a similar example

  • Catalogue Essay

    Phillips wishes to thank Salvatore Licitra and Brian Kish for their assistance cataloguing the present lot.

    Having apprenticed at the Passarin then Fabris ceramic factories, in 1921 the Italian ceramist Luigi Zortea opened his own workshop on via Volpato 4 in Bassano. There Zortea dedicated himself to the creation of 'white tufts, forests of flowers and birds, or of corals and fish in glazed majolica’, and was described by his friend Gio Ponti in a 1950 article for Domus (no. 525), as ‘one of the kindest and most poetic inventors of our ceramics'. In addition to his own production, during the late 1930s and 1940s Zortea realised works based on Ponti's designs, which the architect incorporated into many of his interiors, such as those for the Ripamonti aparment, the ‘Conte Biancamano’ and the ‘Conte Grande’ ocean liners. The present lot was possibly designed by Ponti for the Cremaschi apartment in 1948.

5

Unique pair of large wall lights

circa 1948
Glazed earthenware.
Larger: 51 x 28 x 12.5 cm (20 1/8 x 11 x 4 7/8 in.)
Together with a certificate of expertise from the Gio Ponti Archives.

Estimate
£8,000 - 12,000 Ω

Sold for £47,880

Contact Specialist

Antonia King

Head of Sale, Design

Antonia.King@phillips.com

 

Design

London Auction 30 June 2021