Achille Salvagni Atelier | Summer Show 2016 | Cocktail Hour

Departing from the sumptuous grandeur and darker tones of Ancient Rome, Achille Salvagni’s summer collection transports us to a more contemporary ‘cocktail party’ setting, combining the iconic lines and shapes of 1930s Italian design with a striking colour palette inspired by Qing dynasty ceremonial dress. Adorned in deep yellows, dusty roses and luminous creams, with touches of Capri blue, celadon and jades, the new collection brings together a set of rich and varied textures, from delicate wools and silks to polished woods and smooth mineral stones.

The front room of the Atelier features two new eye-catching armchairs, Tato, named after Guglielmo Sansoni Tato, a prolific artist of the Futurist movement and protagonist of aero-painting. The design of the chairs references Art Deco, whilst also revealing a nod to 1930s industrial design. The central multifaceted coffee table Pietra is a magnified version of Salvagni’s classic Emerald table but is here rendered in stained lacewood. In the same room a set of Angel sconces, a classic example of Salvagni’s popular onyx wall lights, are shown in London for the first time.

Of particular interest are two extraordinary sets of doors by Italian artists Enrico Castellani and Lucio Fontana. These are prototype examples of their respective designs that were never realised commercially, hence their extreme rarity.

In the second room, against the elegant Alpacca wall, sit two small Vittoria chairs, accompanied by egg-shaped Cosmedin side tables made of Breccia Imperiale Stazzema and Calacatta Pavonazetto marbles and bronze. The bronze relief tabletops were cast from clay impressions of the fine Cosmatesque mosaic floor of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome dating back to the 8th Century.