Barrel-Shaped Travertine and Brass Dining Table, Willy Rizzo, Italy, circa 1970

A barrel-shaped dining table of exceptional scale and refinement by Willy Rizzo, the Italian-born designer celebrated for his sumptuous 1970s furniture characterised by the marriage of natural stone with precisely worked brass. The generous elliptical top in warm beige travertine — the Italian limestone prized since antiquity for its distinctive porous texture and creamy tonal depth — is supported on a base of bold cylindrical form clad in travertine panels and edged in decorative brass mesh of characteristic elegance. The combination of the organic materiality of the stone and the controlled precision of the brass produces the signature Rizzo effect: luxurious, architecturally bold, and entirely without extraneous ornament.

Willy Rizzo (1928–2013), born in Naples and celebrated in Paris as both a society photographer of legendary reputation and, from the late 1960s, one of the most gifted furniture designers of his generation, created a body of work that occupied a singular position at the intersection of Italian craft traditions and French luxury sensibility. His furniture, produced in limited quantities for a sophisticated international clientele, combined the finest natural materials — travertine, onyx, malachite, lacquer — with structural frameworks in polished brass, chrome and lacquered steel. This dining table, with its bold barrel form and expert stone-and-brass articulation, is among the most imposing expressions of Rizzo’s distinctive aesthetic.

In very good condition consistent with age, the travertine retaining its natural warmth and the brass mesh presenting a fine golden patina. Minor wear commensurate with five decades of use. An important piece of post-war Italian design by a celebrated name, suited to a formal dining room of ambition or a collector’s interior where the finest materials and creative personalities of the 1970s are represented.