Pair of Highly Decorative Consoles with Glass Beads

Each Con­sole Table is raised on four tapered met­al legs, con­nect­ed with a cross-shaped bridge. The cen­ter cross con­nec­tion is embell­ished with two bell-shaped elements.

All ele­ments are beau­ti­ful­ly cov­ered with trans­par­ent and dark red strands of beads.

The con­soles come with a mir­rored top and frieze. The sur­round­ing frieze is divid­ed in seg­ments, dec­o­rat­ed with orna­ments made of strings of glass beads.

Espe­cial­ly stun­ning is the amber-coloured glass bead string dec­o­ra­tion in form of a drap­ery, seem­ing­ly hold by two cut glass stones in form of dia­monds. These are extreme­ly rare, tru­ly appeal­ing Con­sole Tables with character. 

His­to­ry and tra­di­tion of glass pro­cess­ing in Milan:

The tra­di­tion of glass pro­cess­ing in Milan dates back as far as the 16^th cen­tu­ry. One of the most sig­nif­i­cant work­shops of all was that of the Sarac­chi, which was renowned for its work in rock crys­tal. They applied cut­ting, carv­ing, and engrav­ing tech­niques that were close­ly relat­ed to those used in glass cut­ting. From this devel­oped the tra­di­tion of Lom­bard glass-cut­ting and engrav­ing tech­niques in the 18^th century.

Milan also had a long-stand­ing tra­di­tion of stone cut­ting (pietra dura and rock crys­tal), from which tech­niques for glass cut­ting and glass engrav­ing were adopt­ed. Also worth men­tion­ing are the Pina­cote­ca and the Accad­e­mia di Brera, found­ed in 1776, which became an impor­tant cen­ter for aca­d­e­m­ic train­ing, includ­ing engrav­ing, cop­per­plate engrav­ing, and draw­ing. At this time, Milan was a cen­ter of the dec­o­ra­tive arts, and glass cut­ting formed part of this lux­u­ri­ous craft tra­di­tion.

In con­trast to Venice, how­ev­er, Milan nev­er achieved the same renown as Venice with its glass-pro­duc­ing man­u­fac­to­ries. In Milan, greater empha­sis was placed on the refine­ment of objects — such as engrav­ing — as well as on the design and trade of the lux­u­ry goods pro­duced there. The high­ly spe­cial­ized work­shops main­tained close ties with the art acad­e­mies and thus served pri­mar­i­ly as intel­lec­tu­al and tech­ni­cal cen­ters. Their exper­tise had a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on crafts­man­ship at many Euro­pean courts — for exam­ple, in Prague at the court of Emper­or Rudolf II, where Milanese crafts­men played a major role in advanc­ing the tech­niques of glass and crys­tal cut­ting.

A fas­ci­nat­ing but lit­tle-known chap­ter in the his­to­ry of North­ern Ital­ian dec­o­ra­tive arts con­cerns the first half of the 20^th cen­tu­ry. In the Milan area, Lom­bardy, and Bri­an­za, fur­ni­ture made from glass beads and glass baguettes was pro­duced. Small, spe­cial­ized work­shops cre­at­ed objects such as small tables, con­soles, amphorae, and mir­ror frames.

From around 1900 onward, this region devel­oped into one of the most impor­tant cen­ters of Ital­ian fur­ni­ture pro­duc­tion. Between 1900 and 1940, the area was char­ac­ter­ized by numer­ous small, spe­cial­ized craft busi­ness­es, uphol­ster­ers, and wood­work­ing com­pa­nies that laid the foun­da­tions for the region’s mod­ern fur­ni­ture indus­try.

Dur­ing these years, many of these small, spe­cial­ized com­pa­nies exper­i­ment­ed with new mate­ri­als such as glass, glass beads, and glass stones, some of which were also sourced from Venice. Milanese art and design schools, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Accad­e­mia di Brera, again exert­ed a major influ­ence on the design and orna­men­ta­tion of these objects.

Styl­is­ti­cal­ly, these works of art and pieces of fur­ni­ture can be sit­u­at­ed between Art Nou­veau and Art Deco. From a tech­ni­cal per­spec­tive, these art objects made of glass and oth­er mate­ri­als dif­fer marked­ly from Venet­ian blown-glass objects through their elab­o­rate use of glass stones, beads, and baguettes thread­ed onto wire.

These elab­o­rate­ly and artis­ti­cal­ly craft­ed pieces of fur­ni­ture and art objects thus rep­re­sent a fas­ci­nat­ing inter­sec­tion between tra­di­tion­al crafts­man­ship and ear­ly design.