Portugal White Pots

The Greenapple furniture company creates captivating pieces using novel forms, colors and materials inspired by modern and Art Deco styles. Its unique 21st-century furniture combines luxury and an uncommon eye for design. Greenapple creates high-end furniture for homes, hotels and commercial spaces, with the tastes and needs of its clients considered in every step of the design process.

The furniture company was started in 2005, when Portuguese economists Rute Martins and Sérgio Rebola teamed up with the idea of employing traditional Portuguese craftsmanship to create beautiful bespoke furniture and decor.

Over time, Greenapple grew to a team of 30 craftspeople, all bringing their individual skills to each new design. A master woodworker, upholsterer and finishing specialist lead the team, with their work also passing down this expertise to the next generation of creators.

Greenapple challenges the uniformity of mass-produced furniture, such as in its playful forms for velvet-upholstered seating and wall mirrors that involve eclectic materials like green onyx, gold leaf and marble. Whether infusing complexity into the structure of a side table or bringing a silhouette of simple elegance to a set of uncomplicated dining chairs, Greenapple incorporates bold concepts and fresh ideas into every piece.

Greenapple has showcased its work around the world, including in Shanghai in 2018 for an Associative Design business mission. The company has an international clientele, including collectors in Asia, North America and across Europe. 

On 1stDibs, explore the vibrant luxury of Portuguese master craftsmanship with Greenapple seating, tables, lighting, decorative objects 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.

For thousands of years, vases and vessels have had meaningful functional value in civilizations all over the world. In Ancient Greece, ceramic vessels were used for transporting water and dry goods, holding bouquets of flowers, for storage and more. Outside of utilitarian use, in cities such as Athens, vases were a medium for artistic expression — pottery was a canvas for artists to illustrate their cultures’ unique people, beliefs and more. And pottery skills were handed down from fathers to sons.

Every antique and vintage vase and vessel, from decorative Italian urns to French 19th-century Louis XVI–style lidded vases, carries with it a rich, layered story. 

On 1stDibs, there is a vast array of vases and vessels in a variety of colors, sizes and shapes. Our collection features vessels made from delicate materials such as ceramic and glass as well as durable materials like rustproof metals and stone.

A contemporary vase can help introduce an air of elegance to your minimalist space while an antique Chinese jar would make a luxurious addition to an Asian-inspired interior. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a statement piece, consider an Art Deco vase crafted by Italian architect and furniture designer Gio Ponti.

Vases and vessels — be they handmade pots, handblown glass wine bottles or otherwise — are versatile, practical decorative objects, and no matter your particular design preferences, furniture style or color scheme, they can add beauty and warmth to any home. Find yours on 1stDibs today.