Gio Ponti for ISA Bergamo: High-Back Sofa, c.1950

Gio Ponti (1891–1979) designed nearly everything a modern Italian life could touch. After the First World War he trained as an architect in Milan, spent the 1920s as artistic director of the porcelain house Richard Ginori, and in 1928 founded Domus, the magazine that would shape Italian design for the rest of the century. He went on to draw glass for Venini, lighting for Fontana Arte, the Superleggera chair for Cassina and, at the end of the 1950s, the Pirelli Tower - the slender skyscraper that still defines the Milan skyline. One idea ran through all of it: that a modern Italian interior could be light, elegant and quietly joyful. His upholstered furniture of the early 1950s carries that idea in its silhouette - high backs, arms that flare outward like wings, legs that taper to a point, the whole piece seeming to lift off the floor.

This high-back sofa, made around 1950 by Arredamenti ISA Bergamo and attributed to Ponti, is from that moment. Three panels rise in a tall, gently curved back, framed by winged sides that sweep forward into rounded, outward-flaring arms. Three loose seat cushions sit on a deep piped base, and the whole frame stands on slender tapered timber legs. It is still dressed in what is believed to be its original saffron velvet - rare for an upholstered piece of this age, most of which have been re-covered several times over. It reads as warm and sculptural from across a room - a sofa with the posture of an armchair and the presence of a piece of architecture.

Provenance: private collection, Melbourne.

Dimensions: H 0.87m × W 2.01m × D 0.74m

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