1946/48, sculpturally moulded walnut in the form of bundled branches, wrapped with bronze cords and olive leaves, Bohemian crystal glass table top, height 72.5 cm, 200 x 137 cm. (DRAX)

The present table was executed as a unique piece for Alice Lampugnani’s Villa Sanremo in Bordighera. Manzù manufactured it in Eugenio Gritti’s carpentry workshop in Bergamo.

With a certificate issued by Inge Manzù, Ardea, dated 12.10.2012, archive number 30/2012 and a handwritten confirmation of provenance by Carla Lampugnani, dated 27.9.2012.

Provenance:
Alice Lampugnani, Villa Sanremo, Bordighera, Italy - family ownership until 2009

Alice Lampugnani, for whose villa Giacomo Manzù created this dining table, was, at the time, a close friend and patron of the artist. She inspired him to create a wealth of drawings and studies. The intellectual exchange between them culminated in Manzù’s seminal work “Grande Ritratto di Signora” (1946), which Alice Lampugnani commissioned and for which she also stood model. This life-size bronze sculpture laid the foundation of Manzù’s artistic fame, leading to the commission of the large Porta della Morte for St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome in 1947, and subsequently to the first prize at the Venice Biennale in 1948. In 2003, the LAMe Gallery in Vicenza dedicated an exhibition of about 50 works, titled “Manzù - le opere per Alice Lampugnani”, to the fruitful relationship between the artist and this collector. In addition to the present large table, Lampugnani’s villa in Bordighera housed many other objects created by Manzù, such as lamps, door stoppers, bronze and copper frames as well as marble fountains. 

In an earlier version of the table with bundled and forking branches, Manzù used the motif of the “tralci di vite” (vine branches), which he revisited time and again, in various forms and contexts, over two decades. This motif began with the artist’s botanical studies of the early 1940s, resurfacing in details of the large bronze doors of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and Salzburg Cathedral, as well as in the group of three-dimensional bronze still lifes on chairs from the 1960s.

Cf. Lit.:
Manzù. Le opere per Alice Lampugnani, catalogue, LAMe Vincenza-Verona 2004 - B. Cinelli-D. Colombo, Manzù. Dialoghi sulla Spiritualità con Lucio Fontana, catalogue, Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo Rome / Museo Giacomo Manzù, Ardea, Electa 2016, p. 67/68, 71 “(Grande Ritratto di Signora”) - M. de Michele, Giacomo Manzù 1908–1991, Milan 1971, ill. 55/56 (Sedia con aragosta, 1966), ill. 57 (Sedia con ramo di vite e pera, 1966), ill. 11, ill. 117 (Porta dell’Amore, Salzburg Cathedral, 1958), ill. 118, ill. 127 (Porta della Morte, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, 1947-1964)