Mid-Century Italian Wooden Bar Cart with Glass Serving Trays Attributed to Cesare Lacca, 1950s

Fantastic midcentury wood bar cart with glass serving trays. Cesare Lacca probably designed this amazing piece in Italy during the 1950s. This wonderful serving piece comes with a removable glass tray and has an ergonomic wooden bottle holder, while the structure is made of soft, round wood lines. It has four full working wheels with a brass cover. The design of this item makes it ideal for a midcentury-style dining room or bar. Born in Naples in 1929, the Italian architect-designer Cesare Lacca created modernist furniture and metal objects in the 1950s. Although the details of his personal life and professional training remain lost in history, there are sufficient surviving primary sources documenting his many elegant brass designs for which he is best known and which get high prices from collectors. Like many Italian designers in the 20th century, Lacca moved to Milan after the Second World War to start his career. Even before he turned 21, his work was selected by a group of American curators for inclusion in historic Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today exhibition that visited 12 U.S. museums between 1950 and 1953, the first major exhibition of Italian design outside Italy. The exhibition exhibited the best and brightest Italian designers who had embraced modernist principles and rejuvenated traditional Italian craftsmanship, such as Carlo Mollino, Franco Albini and Gio Ponti In his career, Lacca has designed many tea trolleys and serving trolleys, which represent a large part of what is available on the vintage market today, as well as magazine racks and coffee tables. Lacca’s most iconic tea trolley was produced by the Italian brand Cassina and features carved beech, cedar, teak or walnut with brass details, a glass top and a removable glass tray. Lacca also designed high-backed lounge chairs, which were regularly featured in the Arredoluce advertisements for Angelo Lelli’s lighting. Incidentally, Lacca’s lighting projects, at least one of which was exhibited at the 1950 Brooklyn Museum exhibit, are difficult to find and often sell well above the prices estimated at art auctions. Almost all known Lacca designs were created in the 1950s, and unfortunately, we don’t know how his career has developed since the 1960s. Today Cesare Lacca is appreciated for his contribution to the identity of Italian design; his ability to model brass in the Italian conversation about post-war design; and its timeless and highly sought after service trolleys.