DESIGN: DEVELOPING THE EYE

18th Century North Italian ladies in masks - instructive
and fun!

I am often asked what influences my work – the answer ranges from Alberti to Corbusier, Titian to Twombly – what an annoying question.
Nevertheless, the sale at Christies of the contents of Villa di Azzate [Ca'mera, Varese] vividly reminded me how influenced I was in my Milanese years by the great Italian antiquarian and taste-maker Sandro Orsi who possessed a splendid and discriminating eye. Museum Curator and Scholar of Italian Renaissance Art, John Pope-Hennessy was taken to the house by the erudite art historian Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios and, on leaving, whispered ‘I have never seen such an example of poetical taste’.

18th Century North Italian carved models of hounds 

French 18th Century engravings

Placed on a North Italian 17th Century walnut serpentine sideboard: Chinese Blanc-de-Chine [19th Century],
 a creche model of a camel [19th Century], a North Italian lion [18th Century].
In the background a Piedmontese Chinoiserie wallpaper [18th Century]