Orientalist Armchair Att. To G. Parvis, Italy, Circa 1880

Rare Orientalist armchair in carved and tinted wood with inlaid mother-of-pearl and bone. The back is composed of a circle decorated with a frieze of mother-of-pearl interlacing, and includes in its center an ivory colored fabric with a purple star pattern surrounded by a braid, from which five carved uprights join the top of the back of the armchair, with foliage decor.
Straight uprights with bone geometric patterns extend to form the front legs of the armchair, and join the armrests.

Biography :
Giuseppe Parvis, born in Breme in 1831, has studied in the Academia Albertina di Belle Arti of Turin. He arrives in Cairo in 1859, and starts creating orientalist and antique style furniture, often made from ancient elements. Giuseppe Parvis quickly acquires an international reputation, thanks to the Universal and International Exhibitions of Paris in 1867,  Philadelphia in 1876, Milan in 1881 and Turin in 1884 for which he creates an “Egyptian room” decorated with sphinx-shaped statues, as well as the “Egyptian style living room”.
As the official supplier of the Khedives, he decorates the palaces and becomes indispensable in Cairo. He dies in 1909, and his grave in Turin reuses a red granite sarcophagus of the Ancient Empire.