G. Parvis Orientalist armchair, attributed to...

G. Parvis Orientalist armchair, attributed to G. Parvis, Italy, Circa 1880 Stained wood, Mother-of-pearl, Bone Height: 116 cm; Seat width: 58 cm; Depth: 64 cm Rare Orientalist armchair in carved and stained wood with mother-of-pearl and bone inlay. The backrest is composed of a circle decorated with a frieze of interlacing mother-of-pearl pastilles, and includes in its center an ivory fabric with a purple star motif surrounded by a braid from which five carved uprights join the upper crosspiece of the backrest, decorated with scrolls. Straight uprights adorned with geometric bone motifs continue to form the front legs of the armchair, joining the armrests. Biography Giuseppe Parvis, born in Bremen in 1831, studied at the Academia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin (Piedmont). He arrived in Cairo in 1859, and by the early 1860s was creating Arabesque and anti-Aquis furniture, often using antique elements. Giuseppe Parvis quickly achieved international renown, thanks to the Universal and International Exhibitions held in Paris in 1867, Philadelphia in 1876, Milan in 1881 and Turin in 1884, for which he designed an "Egyptian bedroom" decorated with sphinx statues, as well as the "Egyptian-style salon". A regular supplier to the khedives, he decorated their palaces (particularly Abdine's). As "supplier to the court", he quickly became a fixture in Cairo. He died in 1909, and his tomb in Turin reuses an Old Kingdom red granite sarcophagus.