Venetian Art Nouveau Bookcase, Vincenzo Cadorin attributed for Testolini Frères

About Bottega Vincenzo Cadorin
The Cadorins, coming from Pieve di Cadore (like Tiziano Vecelio) but having already moved to Venice in the 16th century, had been a constant presence in the art events of the lagoon city for three centuries; a protagonism that seemed to have been interrupted in 1848 when the last of the seven workshops of the Serenissima was closed.
It was only a parenthesis: Vincenzo, a great sculptor and carver trained at the Academy of Fine Arts and soon at the head of a company that numbered over 40, took over the management of the family atelier a few decades later and until 1925. workers, called to work for the Savoys and for D’Annunzio, for churches, houses and palaces and participated in the Biennale exhibitions since its foundation.

ABOUT TESTOLINI BROTHERS-TESTOLINI FRERES
Fratelli Testolini saw its birth as a carpentry-cabinetmaking company; its owners were not ordinary personalities and immediately began to introduce new fashions in furnishings. The period chosen was not among the most propitious – shortly thereafter there would be the uprisings of 1848 and the famous revolt of Manin and the Republic of San Marco -, but the Testolini were not discouraged and serenely continued their production, seizing immediately the fresh artistic eclecticism that invaded the world from the mid-19th century, starting to conceive and produce original and imaginative models.

Venice increasingly became a destination for rich international tourism and the Testolini Brothers began to diversify and expand their production, covering all branches of applied arts. Towards the end of the century their production was very varied: furniture, furnishing accessories, porcelain, textiles, lace, wrought iron, sculptures in both marble and wood, mosaics, micromosaics, glass, embossed metal objects and photographic material.