Flower Vase by Gio Ponti for Christofle

There’s no doubt Gio Ponti has been one of the greatest designers of the Twentieth century. His influence span from architecture to figurative arts, from furniture design to interior decoration. And besides creating a wide array of diverse furniture pieces, he also tried his hand – with great results, as one would expect – on tableware and decorative pieces.

Ponti worked for names like Krupp, Richard Ginori and the Christofle, a French manufacturer of silver and silver-plate decorative objects. The present piece is a flower holder, designed in the shape of a hollow sphere divided in two halves. The bottom part is meant to be filled with water, while the top part has a number of holes where stems of flowers can be inserted.

This was most likely a presentation piece, gifted to clients of “Arti Grafiche Colombo”, an Italian printing company, as the “A.G.C. – COLOMBO” engraving underneath suggests.

It is preserved in very good original conditions, and is rich in patina; it has not been polished in order to preserve all traces of its history, but a very light clean will be enough to restore its former shine.

Dimensions: Height 10 cm, Width 13 cm, Depth 13 cm