Mazzucotelli, and love for wrought iron

Alessandro Mazzucotelli, lampade e lampadari in ferro battuto - wrought iron lamps and chandeliers

Dragonfly Lamp, 1906

Apparently, the great wrought iron artist/craftsman Alessandro Mazzucotelli (1865-1938) once claimed: “Iron should be treated like a woman: he seems hard and terrible, but with a little fire he turns soft like wax. And when it seems to rebel, do not mistreat and hammer it furiously, no! You have to treat it gently and caress it…”

Fanciful similarities aside – which hail from uncertain sources and should be interpreted with due irony – the works of this great artist (a sculptor, we could say) show a deep love for iron and its material features.

Mazzucotelli, born in Lombardy, was one of the top figures in Italy’s Art Nouveau.

In the first half of the 1900s, his work was renowned all over Europe. In 1925, he took part in the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris (which launched Art Deco). In the same year, he was also invited to the 2nd Monza Biennale; invited again the following edition, he was able to accept in 1927.

Mazzucotelli was also an entrepreneur – founding in 1909 a company in Milan that would go on to export beautiful artifacts in the whole world – and a teacher (he taught for years at Monza’s Istituto superiore per le Industrie artistiche, which he had founded in 1922).

Here is a selection of lamps and chandeliers forged by this master.