Cole & Son | Libreria

The shelf of leather-bound books is among the oldest Fornasetti motifs, and Libreria extends it. The books remain, ranked and worn, but the shelves now also carry the things a collector accumulates around them: glass, ceramics, small ornaments, objects with no function beyond having been chosen.

Fornasetti drew in the flat, and that is what gives this its particular quality. There is no perspective and no cast shadow; depth comes from overlap and from the density of line, so a bookcase is described with complete conviction and almost no illusion. Metallic detail is used sparingly and precisely, on the tooling of a spine, the rim of a glass, the edge of an ornament, which is enough to give the wall a low glint under lamplight without turning it into a metallic paper.

It is a design for an enclosed room. A study, a small library, a dining room or the back of a hall will let the shelves run round and meet, and the effect is of a room lined with things rather than papered. Real books nearby only help. It asks for dark timber, brass, and lamplight rather than overhead light. It also earns its place in a passage between rooms, where a short run of shelves reads as the edge of a larger library.