Unique Coffee Table - c.1965
Bronze and oak - Diam. 109 cm, H. 47 cm

Unique piece

Provenance:
Emile Gilioli, Paris
Private collection, Belgium

Published:
La Maison. Revue mensuelle d'architecture de décoration d'art ménager, Brussels, October 1965, cover
"La Galerie Veranneman à Bruxelles", in La Maison. Revue mensuelle d'architecture de décoration d'art ménager, Brussels, November 1965, ill.
Emiel Veranneman, Gemeentekrediet, Ghent, 1994, ill. p.137

Exhibited:
Herman Miller Showroom, Brussels, 1965
Galerie Veranneman, Brussels, Noir et blanc, November 1965
Galerie Veranneman, Brussels, Veranneman, April 1969, ill. p.48

This unique table by Emile Veranneman belonged to the French artist Emile Gilioli (1911 - 1977), who himself was represented at the gallery owned by Veranneman. In 1965, Veranneman showed this table at the Herman Miller showroom in Brussels, alongside works by Victor Vasarely and Gilioli himself, and again in his newly opened gallery space on Avenue Louise in Brussels, in an exhibition titled "Noir et blanc". Sometime during the seventies, Gilioi resold the table to a private collector who was close to Veranneman and an avid collector of the designer's early work.
Reproduced in interior design publications during the sixties, this coffee table in combination with contemporary art was the perfect calling card for Veranneman's philosophy on art and design. It combines unique craftsmanship with a keen sense of proportions and equilibrium. The bronze tabletop was cast at the Vindevogel foundry in Ghent with the difficult sand cast technique. It creates a result that is one of a kind and brings out an aesthetic of beauty in irregularity. The massive oak foot appears discrete for the heavy bronze top, creating a visual lightness that can be considered as a trademark for Veranneman's designs.

Photograph Herman Miller Showroom, Library Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels