Bastoni began as a silk scarf in the nineteen-forties, and its subject is the contents of the Fornasetti house itself: the umbrella stands and hat stands crowded with antique walking canes that filled the hall. Piero Fornasetti's method was to collect a thing, draw every variant of it, and then repeat the drawings until the ordinary object became a pattern.
The canes are arranged in a checkerboard, alternating direction square by square, and that structure is one Fornasetti returned to throughout his career. It sets up a strong graphic rhythm that would read as a geometric from any distance, with the detail of the handles, carved, ferruled, silver-mounted, emerging only at close range. The pattern therefore works at two scales at once.
It is printed by gravure in four colours, which is what keeps the fine drawing of the handles sharp, with flecks of gold added tonally rather than as highlight. It suits a hall above all, since a design about walking sticks belongs where coats are hung, and it does equally well in a study, a cloakroom or a small dining room. Against dark paint and old timber it reads as a collector's wall. It is a paper that rewards a second look at close range.
