Pietro Chiesa’s Illuminated Drinks Cabinet

Auctioned by Phillips in London for £287,500.

Comfortably outstripping its initial high estimate of £90,000, this important and rare illuminated drinks cabinet by Milanese designer Pietro Chiesa was the unassailable star of Phillips’ October Design auction. Designed by Chiesa in the late 1930s, the cabinet reflects his enduring interest in glass through its undulating doors formed from extraordinary mirrored plate glass. Uniting a functionalist visual language with a more organic form, the cabinet illustrates the duality often found within Chiesa’s work, such as the cohesion between rational rectilinear frames and curvilinear forms or artisan and semi-industrial production.