One-Armed chair for Lisa Licitra Ponti

The present lot is an extraordinary example of Mollino's penchant for alluding to competing sexual themes in a single work. Part of an elaborate and unique suite of furniture presented as a wedding gift to Lisa Ponti and Luigi Licitra in 1940, this one-armed chair has a right-handed mate (current whereabouts unknown). Together they formed a two-seat sofa, but Mollino also designed a one-piece sofa in the same commission, thus implying that the two armchairs could be used seperately in different parts of the room. Only the famed set of six white resinflex side chairs with stilletto legs from the Ponti commission have been published and exhibited since 1952. Our armchair incorporates the same sadistic stilletto motif in its front legs, while the "antelope" back legs and curvy backrest and arm proclaim a more sensual world of comfort.

oak, brass and two-toned green resinflex
31 1/2 in. (80 cm) high
Estimate: $50,000-70,000

ILLUSTRATED
Lisa Licitra Ponti and Enrichetta Ritter, eds., Mobili e Interni di Architetti Italiani, Milan, 1952, p. 41
Una Casa di Predilezioni, Domus,
February 1952, pp. 26-27

Literature
Centre Georges Pompidou,
L'Ttrange univers de l'architecte
Carlo Mollino, 1989, p. 89
(for the sketch of the chairs and sofa)
Carlo Mollino: 1905-1973, Milan, 1989, p. 159 (for the sketch of the chairs and sofa)

Phillips, de Pury & Company would like to thank Lisa Ponti for her assistance with this cataloguing.