The Decorative Arts of the 20th century and Design auction will take place over three sessions on December 18–19, 2025, featuring a total of 426 lots.
The first session focuses on the intersection of art, architecture, interior design, and decoration—a synthesis of disciplines, expressions, and materials that are often, somewhat arbitrarily, assigned to separate artistic or commercial categories. The second and third sessions alternate between furniture, glass and ceramics, lighting, and drawings, mostly conceived and produced in Italy.
In 20th-century Italy, the division between “minor” and “major” arts was challenged by insightful interpreters of the visual arts and architecture. Architects, sculptors, decorators, and artists frequently collaborated and embodied multifaceted skills applied across different artistic expressions, conceived as an inseparable unity. Gio Ponti promoted the integration of decorative arts, architecture, and industry as early as the 1920s. In the 1930s, Lucio Fontana found architects and their works to be a privileged field for experimentation, creating plaster and ceramic sculptures, objects, and decorative elements integrated into architecture and domestic interiors. Between the 1920s and 1950s, Murano glass workshops embraced contemporary artistic developments, inviting architects like Gio Ponti, Tomaso Buzzi, and Carlo Scarpa, painters such as Vittorio Zecchin and Fulvio Bianconi, and sculptors including Hans Stoltenberg Lerche to collaborate. In the postwar period, international artists such as Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, and Roberto Matta also contributed.
During his collaboration with rationalist architects, Lucio Fontana developed a personal sculptural research in the 1930s. Through plaster and ceramic, he prefigured the spatialist outcomes of the 1940s and 1950s. A colored plaster round depicting a “male portrait” (lot 59) reflects an anti-monumental primitivism and a jagged modeling of material, experimenting with expressive forms in contrast to the “Return to Order” movements and the monumentalism of the 1930s. Conceived as a decorative object for a domestic environment, it anticipates Fontana’s later work designing refined decorations for furniture and entire interiors, as evidenced by two extraordinary pieces from Casa G, created in collaboration with Osvaldo Borsani between 1947 and 1951: a sculptural black granite console supported by baroque-inspired putti holding a draped element in space—a precursor to Fontana’s late-1940s three-dimensional research (lot 61); and an indirect-light illuminated panel decorated with gilt stucco scrolls, a recurring motif in his interiors and furniture designs of the late 1940s (lot 60).
Lot 59
Lucio Fontana ( Rosario 1899 - Comabbio 1968 )
"Ritratto virile" . Milan, 1939. Hand-moulded plaster, graffito and painted. Signed and dated lower right “L. Fontana 39”. (d 39 cm.)
Estimate € 18.000 - 20.000
Lot 61
Osvaldo Borsani (1911-1985) e Lucio Fontana (1899-1968)
Console decorated with sculptural group. Execution by Arredamenti Borsani, Varedo, 1950-51. Black granite, painted and gilded wood and plaster. (cm 215x167x52)
Estimate € 80.000 - 100.000
Lot 60
Lucio Fontana ( Rosario 1899 - Comabbio 1968 )
Indirect light chandelier. Execution by Arredamenti Borsani, Varedo, 1949-51. Painted stucco with slightly raised scrolls and gilded on a white background. Support in lightly reinforced cement conglomerate. (cm 160x45)
Estimate € 25.000 - 35.000
The uninhibited and experimental work of the great French Art Nouveau glass masters has always been marked by a lack of inferiority complexes regarding the so-called major arts. From a large and refined private Lombard collection, assembled from the 1970s and enriched through the 2000s, come several exceptionally rare and high-quality vases, mainly designed and produced by Émile Gallé at the end of the 19th century (lots 17–28; 146–159; 403–425), following a deliberate artistic research, documented by an autograph letter written on the occasion of the 1898 Salon de Paris (lot 417).
Lot 24
Emile Gallé ( Nancy 1846 - 1904 )
"L’amour chasse les papillons noir" Vase known as “de tristesse”. Nancy, 1889. Double "ialite" glass, colourless and black cameo, acid and polished decorated with Cupid shooting black butterflies. (h 11 cm.)
Estimate € € 7.000 - 10.000
The various areas represented by the department include outstanding pieces whose authenticity is guaranteed by meticulous historical and material analysis, and, where available, by certificates from relevant archives. Lighting includes chandeliers and lamps by Pietro Chiesa (lots 58, 113, 114, 115), Carlo Scarpa (lot 120), Max Ingrand (lots 57, 294, 295), Gino Sarfatti (lots 68, 73), Angelo Lelii (lots 66, 70, 71, 72), BBPR (lot 31), Hans Kogl (lots 125, 126), Igor Mitoraj (lot 16), Gio Ponti (lots 98, 99), Guglielmo Ulrich (lots 62, 63, 65), Seguso Vetri d’arte (lot 123), Stilnovo (lots 200, 290, 396, 397). The furniture spans from Art Nouveau to the 2000s.
Lot 58
Pietro Chiesa ( Milano 1892 - Parigi 1948 )
Large chandelier. Execution by Fontana Arte, Milan, 1938ca. Brass structure and glass diffusers. (h 135 cm.; d 85 cm.)
Estimate € € 20.000 - 22.000
Lot 73
Gino Sarfatti ( Venezia 1912 - Gravedona 1985 )
Eighteen-light suspension lamp model "2068". Produced by Arteluce, Milan, 1952. Brass and black lacquered brass. (h 45 cm.; d 82 cm.)
Estimate € 12.000 - 13.000
Lot 99
Gio Ponti ( Milano 1891 - 1979 )
Floor lamp with three light elements. Produced by Reggiani, Italy, 1974. Anodised aluminium and stainless steel. (h 155 cm.)
Estimate € 12.000 - 15.000
A group of 1930s rationalist lamps and furniture by Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini, preserved in two private collections, stands out for the untouched originality of materials and the technological innovation of the architects (lots 85–95; 169–174). Osvaldo Borsani is represented with several pieces, including an elegant bar cabinet (lot 49). Ettore Sottsass (lots 53–54), Luciano Grassi, Sergio Conti, and Marisa Forlani (lots 34–35), Ron Arad (lot 51), Franco Albini (lot 96), Mario Bellini (lots 122, 224, 226–228), Gio Ponti (lots 100–104), Mario Botta (lots 52, 229), Luigi Caccia Dominioni (lots 191–197), Marcello Piacentini (lots 41–45), and Paolo Buffa (lots 48, 331) complete a varied and appealing panorama.
Lot 53
Ettore Sottsass ( Innsbruck 1917 - Milano 2007 )
Mirror. Produced by Santambrogio e De Berti, Lissone, 1950s/1960s. Smoked and colourless glass with brass frames and black painted metal and wood backing structure. (193x30.5 cm.)
Estimate € 8.000 - 10.000
Lot 96
Franco Albini ( Robbiate 1905 - Milano 1977 )
Rocking chaise longue model "PS16". Produced by Poggi, Pavia, disegno del 1959, esemplare degli anni '60/'70. Solid teak wood and plywood, seat in hemp canvas and rope, foldable mattress in green-toned checkered fabric and leather. (70x73x165 cm.)
Estimate € 7.000 - 8.000
Lot 122
Mario Bellini ( Milano 1935 )
Sofa model "Camaleonda". Produced by B&B, Novedrate, 1973ca. Four modules covered in blue chenille, original Gavina fabric. Structure in plywood, polyurethane foam, snap hooks and connecting rings in chrome-plated steel, spherical rubber feet. (340x65x94 cm.)
Estimate € 9.000 - 10.000
In the field of Murano art glass, the sale includes rare vases from the 1930s and 1950s by Paolo Venini (lot 9), Carlo Scarpa (lots 2, 8), and Ercole Barovier (lots 3, 5, 348, 352), alongside rare art ceramics by Gio Ponti (lots 105–109), Richard Ginori, Guido Andlovitz (lot 4), Andrea Branzi (lot 15), and Ettore Sottsass (lot 55).
Lot 9
Paolo Venini ( Milano 1895 - Venezia 1959 )
Rare centrepiece plate model "4881 del Catalogo Blu". Execution by Venini, Murano, 1957ca. Black and sapphire "tipo S" murrine glass, with a rectangular central insert of sapphire murrine. Hammered on the outer surface. (22x13.5 cm.)
Estimate € 6.000 - 7.000
Lot 109
Gio Ponti ( Milano 1891 - 1979 )
"Mappamondo"Rare vase of the series "Le mie terre". Execution by Richard Ginori, Milan, 1928-30. (h 32 cm.)
Estimate € 7.000 - 8.000