Agresti Jewelry Safe

Luxury furniture brand Agresti has been known for its exquisite range of jewelry boxes, storage cabinets, safes and other case pieces since the postwar years. The Italian company is recognized internationally for its commitment to unparalleled craftsmanship in every piece that is produced in its factory in Florence.

Osvaldo and Pia Agresti established their company in 1949, when skilled craftspeople in the historic capital of Tuscany created modern case goods by hand for the fledgling brand. Today, Agresti is recognized for elegant but sturdy strongboxes equipped with complex and multiple key and tumbler locks and sophisticated biometric opening devices. Agresti watch boxes feature bulletproof glass fronts, leather pouches and innovative Swiss mechanisms that wind timepieces when not in use, while their game sets, crafted in red briar and polished ebony, are guaranteed to dazzle even the most seasoned chess champions. 

Agresti furnishings are made of the world’s finest materials, including a range of leathers, mahogany, bird’s eye maple, brass and a rare metal called ruthenium. The elaborate interiors of the brand’s armoires and commodes — some of which feature brass-plated 24-karat gold hardware and high-level steel — frequently prove mind-boggling, offering an array of drawers and pull-out necklace bars. All cigar humidors have a removable tray, hygrometers and cedar lining, while some of Agresti’s luxury bar cabinets feature maple interiors and roomy compartments for glasses and bottles.

On 1stDibs, find Agresti decorative objects, storage cabinets, desk accessories and more.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.