Piero Fornasetti

PIERO FORNASETTI (Milan, 1913 - 1988) for BARDELLI, Italy.
"Città di Carte (City of cards)", 1995.
Signed and dated.
Four-leaf folding screen.
Measurements: 200 x 200 cm (total size), composed of four pieces of 200 x 50 cm each.
This screen follows the original design of "Citta di Carte", one of the most representative themes of Fornasetti's imaginary. This famous and sought-after model was first used in the realization of a four-panel wooden screen known for being the first screen created by Piero Fornasetti. Since then, this theme is crowned as an emblem of the firm, being the image of countless objects of the Atelier Fornasetti.
Piero Fornasetti was an Italian multidisciplinary artist who excelled especially in the world of design, engraving and illustration. He lived most of his life in Milan, although World War II caused him to go into exile in Switzerland between 1943 and 1946. When he returned to Italy he came back with renewed strength and an even more defined style. For what later became his best-known creation "Themes and Variations", he used the face of the opera singer Lina Cavalieri as his muse, which he went on to print on a set of more than 350 plates and a total of more than 11,000 pieces. He found the singer's face in a 19th century magazine and, enraptured by her classical beauty, endlessly created more than 500 variations of it. His decorative motifs wink at Roman and Greek architecture, as well as the sun and the weather. His son, Barnaba Fornisetti, took over the family workshop and today continues to produce pieces that are extremely popular in the world of interior design.