Aldo Tura oxblood lacquered parchment flask, 1960s

Aldo Tura, also known as ‘the master of parchment’ due to his love of this material, is becoming more widely known within the roll-call of highly regarded mid-20th Century Italian furniture designers. Tura harnessed his coming-of-age interest in Italian Art Deco and Art Nouveau with the minimalism of the austere 1940’s and 50’s of the Post War world that he found himself in. He relished combining unusual materials, such as egg-shell and coloured parchment, to achieve rich palettes and effects, such as this oxblood red, to evoke a world of glamour and singularity. He established a production house in Lombardy in 1939, and continued to be committed to high end craftsmanship rather than mass production. The number of Tura pieces is, therefore, limited.

This piece was produced by the Macabo firm in Milan (Cusano Milanino), who produced some of Tura’s pieces during the second half of the 20th Century. The Brooklyn Museum, New York, owns a small number of Tura designs that were originally exhibited in the 1950-53 showcase traveling exhibition Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today.