Schiaparelli unveils artistic collaboration between artist F Taylor Colantonio and Daniel Roseberry
Produced to order in a numbered edition of 8 pieces, the collaboration is a continuation of Elsa Schiaparelli’s historically important legacy of working closely with artists to create objects which live between surrealism and functionality, and blur the boundaries of art, design, and haute couture.
Elsa Schiaparelli has always maintained a close relationship to arts and design, inviting the likes of Jean Cocteau, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dalí, Christian Bérard and many others to create exclusive motives and designs for her collections, bringing their universe to the surrealist and enchanting one of Schiaparelli.
Daniel Roseberry continues Elsa’s legacy and inter-disciplinary tradition with this new artistic collaboration.
“I loved working with F Taylor Colantonio, whose work I have been admiring for years, to create something out of our common interests for mythology and a certain theatricality that still bears the Schiaparelli imprint.”
ABOUT THE COLLABORATION
Born from a friendship and admiration of one another’s work, Daniel Roseberry, the Creative Director of Schiaparelli, and the artist F Taylor Colantonio have created a suite of sculptural bronze furniture, upholstered in a precious silk embroidery.
Inspired by the ‘Toilet of Venus’ motif, a neo-classical artistic trope in which the goddess Venus is depicted in her celestial bedchamber, the bronzes are made in Italy using the ancient lost wax technique. They are presented in sealed raw bronze, un- patinated, which indicates an impeccable quality of bronze as no imperfections can be concealed.
The embroideries are designed by Daniel Roseberry and made by hand in corded silk with gilded leather appliqués at the Schiaparelli atelier in Paris, with hundreds of hours required for each piece.
The pieces can be viewed by appointment in Paris, in the salons of Schiaparelli, on the third floor of 21, Place Vendôme.
THE DAYBED
One Long as Twenty, 2023
F Taylor Colantonio, Schiaparelli by Daniel Roseberry
Solid Bronze, Schiaparelli by Daniel Roseberry corded silk embroidered cushions with gilded leather appliqué.
The daybed takes its name from an excerpt from Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, a beautiful poem about Adonis’s initial reluctance to ‘befriend’ Venus, his ultimate capitulation and their ensuing love, and finally his untimely death.
The figures in the bed are inspired by Pascal and Pascaline, the two wooden mannequins that Elsa Schiaparelli used as unofficial mascots of the Maison, which she had married in a wedding ceremony in front of her closest friends. “I think it’s fun to immortalize their love for one another like Venus and Adonis.”, says F Taylor.
THE CHAIRS
Throne for Queen-Moon, 2023
F Taylor Colantonio, Schiaparelli by Daniel Roseberry.
Solid bronze, Schiaparelli by Daniel Roseberry corded silk embroidered cushion with gilded leather appliqué, hand-dyed silk cord cover, electrical parts.
This chair/lamp takes its name from a line in John Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale. Keats spent the end of his life in Rome and died there at the age of 25, and Colantonio has visited the room where he died.
ABOUT F TAYLOR COLANTONIO
Born in Boston in 1988, F Taylor Colantonio’s first name is legally just the letter F, due to a clerical error on his birth certificate. Working primarily in bronze and in polished cartapesta, a unique material he has been developing since 2012, Colantonio’s practice explores the otherworldly, a concept the artist imagines as the intersection between mythology, outer space, and geology. Taking the forms of celestial household objects, the works are often grounded by a participatory or functional component to encourage interaction and use.
Before opening his studio in 2016, Colantonio earned an MFA in Furniture Design from Rhode Island School of Design in 2013 and apprenticed with a master of papier-mâché in the very southern tip of Puglia, who is considered to be the best working today. He shares his time between Rome, Italy and Massachusetts, USA.
