Gio Ponti Leggera

Chiavari Chair Wood

Ashwood Chairs

Materials

Upholstery, Wood

$11,800 / set

Gio Ponti 646 "Leggera" Dining Chairs for Cassina, Blue Velvet, 1952, Set of 4

By Gio Ponti, Cassina

Located in Lonigo, Veneto

Gio Ponti 646 “Leggera” dining chairs for Cassina, blue velvet, Italy, 1952, set of 4 The 646 “Leggera” is one of Gio Ponti’s most enduring chair designs—an icon defined by Cassina’...

Category

Vintage 1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs

Materials

Rope, Ash

Recent Sales

Sold

H 32.29 in W 17.33 in D 17.33 in

Gio Ponti Leggera Set of Ten, Cassina Labels

By Gio Ponti

Located in Wargrave, Berkshire

Gio Ponti for Cassina, Italy, 1951. A very elegant "Harlequin" set of ten Leggera dining chairs reupholstered in Kvadrat colors, five examples retain their original Cassina labels.

Materials

Fabric, Wood

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H 30.71 in W 15.75 in D 16.54 in

6 Leggera Chairs in Gio Ponti Style

By Gio Ponti

Located in Antwerp, BE

These original chairs in white lacquered wood and wicker seat are made in Belgium.

Category

Vintage 1960s Belgian Mid-Century Modern Side Chairs

Set of Six "Leggera" Chairs by Gio Ponti

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H 32.68 in W 18.9 in D 16.93 in

Set of Six "Leggera" Chairs by Gio Ponti

By Gio Ponti

Located in Piacenza, Italy

Extraordinary set of six original "Leggera" chairs designed by Gio Ponti. Iconic chair in early edition, newly reupholstered in green blue cotton.

Category

Vintage 1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs

Materials

Wood

Set of Ten "Leggera" Chairs by Gio Ponti

Sold

H 32.68 in W 16.54 in D 18.9 in

Set of Ten "Leggera" Chairs by Gio Ponti

By Gio Ponti

Located in Piacenza, Italy

Elegant set of ten chairs “Leggera” by Gio Ponti for Cassina. Newly reupholstered with beige vinyl.

Set of six "Leggera" chairs by Gio Ponti for Cassina

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H 32.68 in W 16.54 in D 18.51 in

Set of six "Leggera" chairs by Gio Ponti for Cassina

By Gio Ponti, Cassina

Located in Milano, Lombardia

Set of six "Leggera" chairs designed by Gio Ponti, manufactured by Cassina in 1951.

Materials

Materials

Metal

Mustard Mohair Velvet Round Ottoman with Oak Feet, Modern UK Design

$2,507 / item

H 15.75 in Dm 21.66 in

Mustard Mohair Velvet Round Ottoman with Oak Feet, Modern UK Design

Located in London, England

Dagmar Design - Round Ottoman Custom-made ottoman developed & produced at our workshops in London using the highest quality materials. These examples are upholstered in a mustar...

Category

2010s British Scandinavian Modern Ottomans and Poufs

Materials

Oak, Mohair, Velvet

Pair of Chic 'Arcade' Wrought Iron and Shearling Chairs by Design Frères

$7,800 / set

H 33 in W 18 in D 20.5 in

Pair of Chic 'Arcade' Wrought Iron and Shearling Chairs by Design Frères

By Gilbert Poillerat, Design Frères

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Pair of chic 'Arcade' wrought iron and shearling chairs by Design Frères. Extraordinary pair of side chairs with white shearling upholstery. This unique upholstery treatment gives...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary French Art Deco Side Chairs

Materials

Wrought Iron

Murano Glass Sconces, Hand-Blown Smoked Glass on Brass Frame, Italy

$3,750 / set

H 25 in W 3.5 in D 2.5 in

Murano Glass Sconces, Hand-Blown Smoked Glass on Brass Frame, Italy

Located in Austin, TX

Pair of Murano glass sconces, each crafted with a single curved panel of hand-blown smoked glass on a brass frame. We love the modern style and hand-crafted quality of these sconces....

Category

2010s Italian Modern Wall Lights and Sconces

Materials

Brass

$6,877 / item

H 23.63 in Dm 43.31 in

Murano Sputnik Spherical Green Glass and Brass Chandelier

Located in Roma, Lazio

A fantastic emerald green sputnik, with a surprising design and for its very low height, which allows it to fit in both high and low ceilings. Very elegant, it will furnish and decor...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Italian Mid-Century Modern Chandeliers and...

Materials

Brass

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Gio Ponti Leggera For Sale on 1stDibs

Find many varieties of an authentic gio ponti leggera available at 1stDibs. Frequently made of wood, hardwood and ash, every gio ponti leggera was constructed with great care. Your living room may not be complete without a gio ponti leggera — find older editions for sale from the 20th Century and newer versions made as recently as the 20th Century. A gio ponti leggera is a generally popular piece of furniture, but those created in Mid-Century Modern and Modern styles are sought with frequency. You’ll likely find more than one gio ponti leggera that is appealing in its simplicity, but Gio Ponti, Cassina and Figli di Amadeo Cassina produced versions that are worth a look.

How Much is a Gio Ponti Leggera?

The average selling price for a gio ponti leggera at 1stDibs is $5,500, while they’re typically $495 on the low end and $33,450 for the highest priced.

Gio Ponti for sale on 1stDibs

An architect, furniture and industrial designer and editor, Gio Ponti was arguably the most influential figure in 20th-century Italian modernism.

Ponti designed thousands of furnishings and products — from cabinets, mirrors and chairs to ceramics and coffeemakers — and his buildings, including the brawny Pirelli Tower (1956) in his native Milan, and the castle-like Denver Art Museum (1971), were erected in 14 countries. Through Domus, the magazine he founded in 1928, Ponti brought attention to virtually every significant movement and creator in the spheres of modern art and design.

The questing intelligence Ponti brought to Domus is reflected in his work: as protean as he was prolific, Ponti’s style can’t be pegged to a specific genre.

In the 1920s, as artistic director for the Tuscan porcelain maker Richard Ginori, he fused old and new; his ceramic forms were modern, but decorated with motifs from Roman antiquity. In pre-war Italy, modernist design was encouraged, and after the conflict, Ponti — along with designers such as Carlo Mollino, Franco Albini, Marco Zanuso — found a receptive audience for their novel, idiosyncratic work. Ponti’s typical furniture forms from the period, such as the wedge-shaped Distex chair, are simple, gently angular, and colorful; equally elegant and functional. In the 1960s and ’70s, Ponti’s style evolved again as he explored biomorphic shapes, and embraced the expressive, experimental designs of Ettore Sottsass Jr., Joe Colombo and others.

Ponti's signature furniture piece — the one by which he is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Germany’s Vitra Design Museum and elsewhere — is the sleek Superleggera chair, produced by Cassina starting in 1957. (The name translates as “superlightweight” — advertisements featured a model lifting it with one finger.)

Ponti had a playful side, best shown in a collaboration he began in the late 1940s with the graphic artist Piero Fornasetti. Ponti furnishings were decorated with bright finishes and Fornasetti's whimsical lithographic transfer prints of things such as butterflies, birds or flowers; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts possesses a 1950 secretary from their Architetturra series, which feature case pieces covered in images of building interiors and facades. The grandest project Ponti and Fornasetti undertook, however, lies on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean: the interiors of the luxury liner Andrea Doria, which sank in 1956.

Widely praised retrospectives at the Queens Museum of Art in 2001 and at the Design Museum London in 2002 sparked a renewed interest in Ponti among modern design aficionados. (Marco Romanelli’s monograph, which was written for the London show, offers a fine overview of Ponti’s work.) Today, a wide array of Ponti’s designs are snapped up by savvy collectors who want to give their homes a touch of Italian panache and effortless chic.

Find a range of vintage Gio Ponti desks, dining chairs, coffee tables and other furniture on 1stDibs.

Finding the Right Seating for You

With entire areas of our homes reserved for “sitting rooms,” the value of quality antique and vintage seating cannot be overstated.

Fortunately, the design of side chairs, armchairs and other lounge furniture — since what were, quite literally, the early perches of our ancestors — has evolved considerably.

Among the earliest standard seating furniture were stools. Egyptian stools, for example, designed for one person with no seat back, were x-shaped and typically folded to be tucked away. These rudimentary chairs informed the design of Greek and Roman stools, all of which were a long way from Sori Yanagi's Butterfly stool or Alvar Aalto's Stool 60. In the 18th century and earlier, seats with backs and armrests were largely reserved for high nobility.

The seating of today is more inclusive but the style and placement of chairs can still make a statement. Antique desk chairs and armchairs designed in the style of Louis XV, which eventually included painted furniture and were often made of rare woods, feature prominently curved legs as well as Chinese themes and varied ornaments. Much like the thrones of fairy tales and the regency, elegant lounges crafted in the Louis XV style convey wealth and prestige. In the kitchen, the dining chair placed at the head of the table is typically reserved for the head of the household or a revered guest.

Of course, with luxurious vintage or antique furnishings, every chair can seem like the best seat in the house. Whether your preference is stretching out on a plush sofa, such as the Serpentine, designed by Vladimir Kagan, or cozying up in a vintage wingback chair, there is likely to be a comfy classic or contemporary gem for you on 1stDibs.

With respect to the latest obsessions in design, cane seating has been cropping up everywhere, from sleek armchairs to lounge chairs, while bouclé fabric, a staple of modern furniture design, can be seen in mid-century modern, Scandinavian modern and Hollywood Regency furniture styles.

Admirers of the sophisticated craftsmanship and dark woods frequently associated with mid-century modern seating can find timeless furnishings in our expansive collection of lounge chairs, dining chairs and other items — whether they’re vintage editions or alluring official reproductions of iconic designs from the likes of Hans Wegner or from Charles and Ray Eames. Shop our inventory of Egg chairs, designed in 1958 by Arne Jacobsen, the Florence Knoll lounge chair and more.

No matter your style, the collection of unique chairs, sofas and other seating on 1stDibs is surely worthy of a standing ovation.