Max Ingrand, Rare Sculptural Light Blue sconces for Fontana Arte, Italy 60s

Max Ingrand project, 1954, for Fontana Arte, Italy, white satin glass, small brass seal in the vase, metal base, white lacquered. Best known for its elegant and innovative vintage lighting pieces, the Milan-based firm Fontana Arte pioneered one of the key features of 20th-century and contemporary Italian design: the union of artistry and industry wrought by partnerships between creative talents — chiefly architects — and entrepreneurial businesses. Fontana Arte is further distinguished by having had as artistic director, in succession, four of Italy’s most inventive modernist designers: Giò Ponti, Pietro Chiesa, French transplant Max Ingrand and Gae Aulenti. The bread and butter of the glassmaking company that Luigi Fontana founded in 1881 was plate-glass panels for the construction industry. In 1930, Fontana met Ponti — then the artistic director of the Richard-Ginori ceramics workshop and the editor of the influential magazine Domus— at a biannual design exhibition that became the precursor to today’s Milan Design Triennale, and the two hatched an idea for a furniture and housewares firm. Fontana Arte was incorporated in 1932 with Ponti as its chief of design. He contributed several lamps that remain among the company’s signature works, including the orb-atop-cone Bilia table lamp and the 0024 pendant — a stratified hanging sphere. The following year, Fontana Arte partnered with the influential Milan studio glassmaker and retailer Pietro Chiesa, who took over as artistic director. Chiesa’s designs for lighting — as well as for tables and items including vases and ashtrays — express an appreciation for fluidity and simplicity of line, as seen in works such as his flute-shaped Luminator floor lamp and the 1932 Fontana table — an arched sheet of glass that is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Six years after Chiesa’s 1948 death, the École des Beaux Arts–trained Max Ingrand took over as head of design at Fontana Arte. Ingrand brought a similarly expressive formal sensibility to wares such as lamps and mirrors, but he also had a masterful eye for the manipulation of glass surfaces — whether they be cut, frosted, acid-etched or sand-blasted. His classic design is the Fontana table lamp of 1954, which has a truncated cone shade and curved body, both of which are made of pure, chic white-frosted glass. Following Ingrand, the often-audacious Italian architect Gae Aulenti served as the company’s artistic director from 1979 to 1996, and while she generally insisted that furnishings take second place aesthetically to architecture, she made an exception for Fontana Arte pieces such as the Tavolo con Ruote series of glass coffee and dining tables on wheels...

Wonderful and huge Fontana Arte table lamp, designed in 1954 by Max Ingrand and manufactured in the early 1960s in Italy. Largest of three existing sizes The "Fontana" table lamps b...

Stunning pair of two sculptural light wall sconces in brass and mirror, Italy, 1970s. The sconces have an extraordinary sculptural design created with brass and a glass that rests o...

Fontana Arte Floor Lamp, Italy 1940.This is an elegant Italian Fontana Arte floor lamp, characterized by its timeless and sophisticated design.

Max Ingrand “1598” sconce for Fontana Arte, glass, brass and metal, Italy, 1956. The "1598" wall sconce, designed by Max Ingrand and produced by Font...

Rare pair of Max Ingrand, etched thick glass sconces, Italy, 1960. Formidable, beautiful pair of deep-beveled oval wall lamps in etched inverted ...

White diffuser glass and satin-finished and curved coloured crystal and brass frame.

Opaque glass, chiseled glass, chrome plated brass Model 2441 table lamp by Max Ingrand for Fontana Arte. This style allows for multiple variations, within context. They have been ...