1950s Aldo Tura Mid-Century Modern Brown Goatskin and Silver Plate Square Carafe

One of the most enigmatic and polarizing figures to emerge in Italian design, Aldo Tura is an outlier in the world of mid-century furniture. The designer’s glamorous bar carts, coffee tables, cabinets and more resist categorization and draw inspiration from Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Baroque, Surrealist and modernist styles.

Tura moved through distinct phases in his career in terms of aesthetics, influences and finishes, rendering his life’s work exciting and diverse. Despite these phases, he held a singular devotion to one material: lacquered goatskin. Tura established a furniture production house in 1939 in Lombardy, and some of his early work focused on tables, decorative lamps and more. He later expanded to bar furnishings like rolling carts, cabinets and complementary barware accessories like ice buckets and cocktail shakers. The eccentric, gleaming and luxe surface of lacquered goatskin was a constant, along with eggshell, parchment and leather.

By the 1950s, Tura had begun to use hand-painted figural panels on the surface of cabinets, serveware (such as carafes) and other pieces. He even replicated famous works by artists like Monet and Bruegel the Elder and art from the Middle Ages, sometimes playfully embedding the paintings on cabinets shaped like oversize books. Even though he had a favored color palette of rich chocolate browns and deep emeralds, his style remained consistently hard to define.

Tura was unlike most of his Italian contemporaries but held a similar reverence for the nation’s traditional craftsmanship and artisanal techniques. He never followed the growing trend of mass-produced, industrial furniture and stuck to creating small, meticulously handcrafted collections. This principled choice means that today, a Tura piece is a rare and highly coveted collectible. The Tura firm continues to operate in Brianza, promoting Italian craftsmanship and the eclectic materials embraced by their namesake designer.

Find authentic vintage Aldo Tura furniture today on 1stDibs.

Offering an eclectic array of styles ranging from Art Deco and Art Nouveau to modern and postmodern, interior design firm and furniture manufacturer Tura is anything but staid. The Italian company’s creative and innovative pieces, such as chairs, side tables, floor lamps and cabinets, are not only artistic but functional in design and suitable for any decor.

Italian designer Aldo Tura established the company in Lombardy in 1939. Unlike many furniture manufacturers of the time who followed the then-growing trend of mass-produced products, Tura believed that high quality came from slow, meticulous attention to detail achieved by hand. Although it was a laborious process, he preferred intricate and complex designs that others could not replicate. This resulted in a limited number of pieces, which is why vintage Tura furniture is rare and prized by collectors.

Today, the Tura company continues to design and manufacture captivating luxury furniture. Tura’s mid-century modern designs are both elegant and unique, using parchment paper, exotic woods, glass and goatskin. For instance, the semi-circular armchair and pouf set by designer Piero Pinto has a touch of geometric glamor with Alcantara upholstery and a matte parchment finish. Sakura Adachi’s Momiji chaise longue has a sophisticated contemporary design with clean lines. Tura’s striking Oyster table lamp, made with petrol-colored parchment, high-gloss finish and polished nickel embellishments, provides a refined ambiance.

The Brooklyn Museum in New York has Tura pieces in its collections which were shown in the 1950 to 1953 traveling exhibition, “Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today.” Tura’s furniture continues to be trendy among architects, interior designers and collectors of modern pieces. 

On 1stDibs, discover a range of Tura seating, tables, lighting and more.