Casati Gallery, Chicago Private collection, Chicago Sotheby's, New York, 'A Mid-Century Eye: The Collection of Colleen Sullivan', 21 September 2011, lot 1 Acquired from the above by the present owner
Literature
Marco Romanelli and Sandra Severi, Gino Sarfatti: Selected Works 1938-1973, Milan, 2012, pp. 142, 145, 465 for a similar example
Rising above the devastation of World War II, post-war Italian design reached new heights of productivity and ingenuity, particularly in the realm of lighting. Gino Sarfatti is among the most celebrated lighting designers from this fruitful period. Before founding his company Arteluce in 1939, Sarfatti studied aeronautical engineering. He brought the inventiveness of a self-taught outsider to the field of lighting design, while his mechanical background lent lightness and ingenuity of construction. Poetic underpinnings are also evident in lamps such as model no. 1034 (sometimes referred to as the "Vine" lamp), which features a nearly 8' twisting brass stem graced with nine delicate, articulating white shades like buds on a flower.