Libri e Tessuti (Books and Fabrics), A Lithographically Transfer-Printed Four-Panel Screen

By Piero Fornasetti, circa 1950s

Each panel: 80 in (203 cm) high, 19 ¾ in (50 cm) wide

cf. Patrick Mauries, Fornasetti. Designer of Dreams (Victoria & Albert Museum exh. cat.), 1991, p.183
Barnaba Fornasetti, ed., Fornasetti: The Complete Universe, 2010, p.424, no.6, p.426, no.19, p.430, no.34

Fornasetti's transformed the screen into a 'must' for the elegant, modern home, making it one of his most famous creations, desired and exported around the globe. He studied its aesthetic, symbolic and ritual values and was fascinated by its linear, flat and rectangular shape, like a blank page awaiting decoration. Fornasetti first started producing screens in the 1940s, expanding his designs and decorative schemes throughout the 1950s and 1960s. His screens are highly treasured examples of his interior decoration.