Small Side Table By Portego

A relative newcomer to the world of Italian furniture, Portego creates contemporary designs by fostering and nurturing a close relationship between its designers and manufacturers. Its home city of Veneto, Italy, attracts many skilled workers and designers, including Chiara Andreatti, Serena Confalonieri, Ilaria Innocenti, Giorgio Laboratore, Alessandro Zambelli, Seraina Lareida and Nikolai Kotlarczyk. From small decorative objects like boxes and baskets, to wool rugs and lacquered side tables, Portego honors historic design with 21st-century style.

Product designer Flavia Testi and interior designer Stefano Rossi founded Portego in 2015 with a network of specialized individuals. Designers are selected not only for their expertise but also for their ability to be adaptable to working with different manufacturers. Portego encourages designers to collaborate closely with the craftspeople who produce the furniture.

Portego is modern in its design with a traditional approach. Alongside recruiting local craft experts, Portego inserts nods to design history. The Bronzino hooks, for example, designed by Alessandro Zambelli, are bronze storage hooks that conjure images of 1900s architecture and resemble brass trumpets. The Elemento and Scena wall mirrors designed by Nikolai Kotlarczyk draw inspiration from 16th-century architect Andrea Palladio and feature carved Murano glass with a polished silver finish.

Portego has exhibited worldwide, including at Milan Design Week, Paris Design Week, Operae in Turin, Italy, the London Design Fair, Design Shanghai and Biennale Interieur in Kortrijk, Belgium.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of Portego rugs and carpets, tables, mirrors 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.

While the range of styles and variety of materials have broadened over time, the priceless functionality of side tables has held true.

Vintage, new and antique side tables are an integral accent to our seating and provide additional, necessary storage in our homes. They can be a great foundation for that perfect focal piece of art that you want all your guests to see as you congregate for cocktails in the living room. Side tables are indeed ideal as a stage for your decorative objects or plants in your library or your study, and they are a practical space for the novel or stack of design magazines you keep close to your sofa.

Sure, owning a pair of side tables isn’t as imperative as having a coffee table in the common area, though most of us would struggle without them. Those made of metal, stone or wood are frequently featured in stylish interiors, and if you’re shopping for side tables, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

With respect to the height of your side tables, a table that is as high as your lounge chair or the arm of your couch is best. Some folks are understandably fussy about coherence in a living room area, but coherence doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t mix and match. Feel free to introduce minimalist mid-century modern wooden side tables designed by Paul McCobb alongside your contemporary metal coffee table. If you think it isn’t possible to pair a Hollywood Regency–style side table with a contemporary sofa, we’re here to tell you that it is. Even a leggy side table can balance a chunky sofa well. Try to keep a limited color palette in mind if you’re planning on mixing furniture styles and materials, and don’t be afraid to add a piece of abstract art to shake things up.

As far as the objects you’re planning to place on your side tables, if you have heavy items such as stone or sculptures to display, a fragile glass-top table would not be an ideal choice. Think about what material would best support your collectibles and go with that. If it’s a particularly small side table, along with a tall, sleek floor lamp, it can make for a great way to fill a corner of the room you wouldn’t otherwise easily be able to populate.

Whether you are looking for an antique 19th-century carved oak side table or a vintage rattan side table (because rattan never went away!), the collection on 1stDibs has you covered.