Designer: Piero Fornasetti (1913 – 1988)

Item: Box Occhi (Eye Box)

Manufactured by: Barnaba Fornasetti

Country of origin: Italy

Year made: 1992

Materials: Steel, wood, lacquer and paint and cardboard outer box

Dimensions:  Slide box is 1 ¾” x 7 ¾” x 3” exterior cardboard box is 2” x 9” x 4”

Condition: Mint in Original Box with sun designs.  Outer box has a few scuffs as shown.

Description: Here is one of Piero Fornasetti’s most famous and iconic designs; the eyes of his muse opera soprano signer Lina Cavalieri whose face adorns a large number of his designs.  The original of this box design dates to the 1950s.  This box is dated 1992 and is number 16 from an unknown edition from that year of production and retaining its original foil sticker on the bottom.  Piero Fornasetti’s son Barnaba Fornasetti has carried on the tradition of his father and the operations of the Fornasetti Atelier.  Barnaba continues to produce limited numbers of handmade objects of his father’s designs, but has also introduced some of his own.

References: Fornasetti, Barnaba, Fornasetti: The Complete Universe, Rizzoli (2010) page 503; Mauries, Patrick, Fornasetti Designer of Dreams, Little, Brown and Company (1991), page 206.