Art Deco Italian Nightstands, 1930s, Set of 2

Design
1930s

Manufacture
1930-1939

Location
Lonigo, IT

Art Deco Italian nightstands, aluminium and veneered wood, Italy, 1930s, set of two.

These Art Deco bedside cabinets belong to the 1930s, when the ornamental language launched at the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris had matured into a more architectural and restrained idiom. The fan marquetry covering the drawer fronts and tops descends from the sunburst and shell motifs of French cabinetmaking of the 1920s, here translated into a regular diamond grid of radiating veneer segments. The stepped, concentric knobs echo the setback profiles of American skyscrapers and the ziggurat forms that Deco absorbed through the 1920s, while the stacked, offset volumes reflect the modernist taste for plain geometric massing. The structure is a play of displaced blocks: the upper drawer unit is shifted against the lower body, and a slim top floats above it, returning into a rounded edge on one side. The sides are veneered in bookmatched wood laid vertically, with a flame figure that contrasts with the geometry of the fronts. Each cabinet has three drawers with aluminum knobs, interiors in plain wood with darkened sides, and small brass casters.