Corner Cabinet with Reverse-Painted Glass Doors

Object Name: 
Corner Cabinet with Reverse-Painted Glass Doors

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Object Name: 
Corner Cabinet with Reverse-Painted Glass Doors
Place Made: 
Accession Number: 
92.3.74
Dimensions: 
Overall (right side) H: 1697 cm; Overall (left side) H: 1696; Overall (back) H: 1690 cm; Overall (glass doors) L: 1280 cm, W: 29.9 cm
Location: 
On Display
Date: 
1941
Web Description: 
The cabinet, a prototype for Fontana Arte, was designed by Ponti, and the doors were painted by Fornasetti. The “farfalle” (butterflies) decoration is a motif that Fornasetti regularly employed. The cabinet was never put into production.
Department: 
Provenance: 
Christie's, NY, Source
1992-12-10
Category: 
Primary Description: 
Colorless non-lead glass with polychrome decoration; paint, enamels; reverse-painted glass: background and some detail probably applied by a printing (possibly lithographic) transfer technique, remainder of color applied by hand brushing. Vertical corner wooden cabinet laminated on front and legs with rosewood, stands on three narrow legs tapering to a point; facade comprised of upper and lower straight flat bands of wood framing two flat vertical rectangular doors, each faced with a glass sheet reverse-screen printed and painted in overall pattern of multi-colored butterflies, moths, fruits (pears, lemon, peach, orange, cherries, grapes, plums), vegetables (pumpkin, squash), flowers, one bird with long beak and forked tail on branch, seashells and three military or commemorative medals on a black background, each panel attached by four corner screws (two of the eight missing their metal caps); two small closely spaced gun-metal vertical rectangular knobs with original key, one keyhole framed in rosewood under right handle; interior has two removable triangular glass shelves; impressed on wooden back (behind front left side), upper right edge: "3766 F (over an "x")".
Modern living : Gio Ponti and the twentieth-century aesthetics of design (2017) illustrated, p. 71, 80-81, 127, fig. 37;
The Corning Museum of Glass, Curators' Choice (1995) illustrated, #23; BIB# 36655
Recent Important Acquisitions, 35 (1993) illustrated, p. 130, #26; BIB# AI32226
The Corning Museum of Glass Annual Report 1992 (1993) illustrated, pp. 11, 14-15; BIB# AI96377