Home Furniture | Mid-Century White Walnut Wood Italian Bar Cart by Franco Albini for Cesare Lacca, 1950s - US42234

Fantastic Mid-Century white walnut wood (Junglans Regia) bar trolley with bottle holder. This extraordinary piece is attributed to Cesare Lacca and was designed in Italy in the 1950s. This wonderful piece is equipped with two ergonomic bottle holders, while the structure is made with soft and round lines in the finest white walnut wood. It has four fully functional wheels with a brass cover. The design of this item makes it perfect for a Mid-Century style dining room or bar. Also beautiful is the ease of disassembling and reassembling it in a minute, this is a convenience and safety for transport, which greatly reduces the shipping price. Born in Naples in 1929, the Italian architect-designer Cesare Lacca created modernist furniture and metal objects in the 1950s. Although the details of his personal life and professional training remain lost in history, there are sufficient surviving primary sources documenting his many elegant brass designs for which he is best known and which get high prices from collectors. Like many Italian designers in the 20th Century, Lacca moved to Milan after the Second World War to start his career. Even before he turned 21, his work was selected by a group of American curators for inclusion in historic Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today exhibition that visited 12 U.S. museums between 1950 and 1953, the first major exhibition of Italian design outside Italy. The exhibition exhibited the best and brightest Italian designers who had embraced modernist principles and rejuvenated traditional Italian craftsmanship, such as Carlo Mollino, Franco Albini and Gio Ponti In his career, Lacca has designed many tea trolleys and serving trolleys, which represent a large part of what is available on the vintage market today, as well as magazine racks and coffee tables. Lacca's most iconic tea trolley was produced by the Italian brand Cassina and features carved beech, cedar, teak or walnut with brass details, a glass top and a removable glass tray. Lacca also designed high-backed lounge chairs, which were regularly featured in the Arredoluce advertisements for Angelo Lelli's lighting. Incidentally, Lacca's lighting projects, at least one of which was exhibited at the 1950 Brooklyn Museum exhibit, are difficult to find and often sell well above the prices estimated at art auctions. Almost all known Lacca designs were created in the 1950s, and unfortunately, we don't know how his career has developed since the 1960s. Today Cesare Lacca is appreciated for his contribution to the identity of Italian design; his ability to model brass in the Italian conversation about post-war design; and its timeless and highly sought after service trolleys.