Historical precedent provides both formal and decorative inspiration for this drop-front writing cabinet, a collaborative effort between the architect Gio Ponti, who designed the pared-down yet still traditional form, and the designer Piero Fornasetti (a former student of Ponti), who was responsible for the exuberant, illusionistic decoration. Fornasetti's depictions of architectural fantasies, in the style of sixteenth-century Italian Mannerist compositions, are screen-printed onto fiberboard panels applied to the framework of the cabinet and varnished.

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