Art and luxury in the details: Italian interior decorators in modern Egypt, 1859-1967

L’art et le luxe dans le détail. La production des entreprises italiennes de décoration dans l’Égypte moderne (1859-1967)

Paola Ricco

p. 157-167


Texte intégral

Figure 1: Front door of a bank, Cairo, by Berté & Gaeta

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Source: Renato Gaeta private archives

Figure 2: Giuseppe Parvis main office, Cairo

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Source: Roberto Parvis private archives

1If the contribution of Italian architects and engineers to the construction of the modern Egypt is fundamentally clear thanks to the several accurate studies carried out in recent years, information related to the activity of the art industries that supported the architects’ projects is more fragmentary. The major obstacle to research has been the dispersion of archival materials when foreign contractors had to leave Egypt suddenly, due to political events. At the moment, the bibliographic resources are the main sources of information, and they suggest a flourishing scene which deserves to be investigated further. Newspapers, guides, exhibition catalogues, yearbooks, and vintage advertising are useful tools which shed light on the work of the Italian interior designers, some of whom were instrumental in contributing to buildings that consolidated the image of a country in search of its modern personality.1

Figure 3: Builders Club, Cairo: Bar furniture, Fernando Parvis, cont.

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Source: Roberto Parvis private archives

Figure 4: Builders Club, Cairo: Entrance, Fernando Parvis, cont.

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Source: Roberto Parvis private archives

Figure 5: Portrait of King Fuad of Egypt, Berté & Gaeta

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Source: Renato Gaeta private archives

2Giuseppe Parvis’s company played an important role in the production of interior furnishing.2 Parvis, born in Breme in the province of Pavia in 1831,3 studied and served his apprenticeship in Turin.4 He later moved to Paris, where he worked as a sculptor and carver, and in 1859, to Cairo, where he opened a cabinetmaker’s shop. It is likely that he was persuaded to stay in the Egyptian capital by the Italian consul Giuseppe De Martino, “who wanted to keep him [in Egypt], convinced that the workshop he would create there would be an honor to Italy.”5 His furniture found favor with Ismail Pasha “who helped him in the research regarding Arab artistic furniture.”6 The Khedive provided him with access to monuments and places that were not open to the public, and Parvis had an opportunity to examine and reproduce the most characteristic, significant decorations of Arab art, which he reinterpreted with inspiration and creativity in his own furniture designs. After a first interest in Arab ornamentation, Parvis started studying ancient Egyptian and Greek-Roman ornamental motifs, transposing into the creation of his furniture the eclectic approach that guided contemporary architectural choices.7

Figure 6: Giuseppe Parvis furniture shown at the 1878 Universal Exposition in Paris

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Source: L’Esposizione di Parigi del 1878 illustrata, Sonzogno, Milan, 1878, vol. I, p. 632

Figure 7: “Egyptian Room” presented by Giuseppe Parvis at the 1884 Turin Exhibition

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Source: L’Esposizione di Parigi del 1878 illustrata, Sonzogno, Milan, 1878, vol. I, p. 272

3Parvis’s excellent professional reputation in Egypt grew during international exhibitions. For the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867, Ismail Pasha commissioned him to furnish and display an “Arab living room,” or mandara, winning a gold medal for Egypt. In 1873, for the Egyptian pavilion at the Exhibition of Vienna, designed as an actual dwelling that would house the Khedive during the event, Parvis designed the mandara door, or living room, three tall cabinets and various other pieces of furniture, including hursis (stools), tripods for different uses, Quran stands and a collection of chased copper objects.8 In 1876, in Philadelphia, he proposed “the furnishings for an Egyptian house,” with two magnificently finished and decorated wardrobes;9 in 1878, he exhibited a few pieces of furniture in Paris,10 and in 1881, he was awarded a silver medal in Milan for the “Egyptian living room” he presented. 11In 1884, he won a gold medal at the Italian Exhibition of Turin by presenting an “Arab reception room” and an “Egyptian room” decorated with sphinx statues;12 in 1898, he took part in the Turin Exhibition in the “Italians Abroad” category, but as he was also a judge, his works were not included in the competition.13 Besides his presence at international exhibitions, bibliographic sources document such work as the decoration of houses and palaces commissioned by Ismail Pasha, works carried out in the palaces of Gezira and Abdeen, at the opera house in the Azbakeya Gardens14 and in the Qubba palace.15

Figure 8: Giuseppe Parvis’s Cairo showroom

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Source: Roberto Parvis private archives

Figure 9: Gate by Berté & Gaeta

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Source: Renato Gaeta private archives

4In the early 1900s, Parvis’s studio employed about one hundred people.16 The bibliographic sources are eloquent about his distinction as a furniture designer: “With the passion of an artist [...] he decided to regenerate the lost Arab art”17 and “by looking at Arab monuments he immediately understood what he could learn from those odd, at first glance incomprehensible lines and their interlacement of incomparable elegance, which he applied to interior design.”18 Mashrabiyas, arabesques, muqarnas, and mosaics became ornaments characterizing objects designed to respond to both local and European customs and ways of living. Parvis’s designs imposed a method and taste, offering the market models that were copied and spread, via the activity of cabinetmakers who had been trained in his workshop, such as the Furino19 and Jacovelli brothers.20 The Furino brothers produced the furnishings of the reception rooms at the Continental and Savoy Hotels. They were awarded the bronze medal at the Exhibition of Alexandria in 1884 and elected as members of the Academy of Arts and Industries of Brussels. The Jacovelli brothers were commissioned by the Committee for the Preservation of the Monuments of Arab Art to carry out restoration of mosques and various other buildings. In 1893, they supervised the installation of the Cairo Street at the Exhibition of Chicago and in 1911, they took part in the international exhibition of Turin. Parvis was a prominent citizen of both the Italian community in Cairo and Egyptian society. The attention he showed towards the cultural life of the city, contributing to the collections of the Arabic Museum21 and the Geographic Society Museum22 and donating some works for the cornerstone ceremony of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities,23 strengthened his reputation and the relationships with some of the capital’s most important institutions. Even if his work was sometimes criticized,24 the prevailing attitude that emerges from the bibliographic sources is that his furniture was generally appreciated, and his shop was one of the sights visitors to Cairo had to see.25

Figure 10a: Mosque decoration proposal by Enrico Nistri (Stamp: Gold medal at 1911 Turin Exhibition): Detail of the painted wood ceiling and ceiling frieze, frieze on the wooden ceiling beams, dome and stalactites

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Source: Enrico Nistri private archives

Figure 10b: Mosque decoration proposal by Enrico Nistri (Stamp: Gold medal at 1911 Turin Exhibition): Detail of the painted wood ceiling and ceiling frieze, frieze on the wooden ceiling beams, dome and stalactites

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Source: Enrico Nistri private archives

Figure 10c: Mosque decoration proposal by Enrico Nistri (Stamp: Gold medal at 1911 Turin Exhibition): Detail of the painted wood ceiling and ceiling frieze, frieze on the wooden ceiling beams, dome and stalactites

Image 100000000000031C000004AA49FC780E15FEB1A9.jpg

Source: Enrico Nistri private archives

Figure 10d: Mosque decoration proposal by Enrico Nistri (Stamp: Gold medal at 1911 Turin Exhibition): Detail of the painted wood ceiling and ceiling frieze, frieze on the wooden ceiling beams, dome and stalactites

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Source: Enrico Nistri private archives

5After Giuseppe’s death,26 his son Pompeo took over the company. In the late 1930s, he in turn passed it on to his son, Fernando (born in Cairo on June 30, 1901).27 When he inherited the family company, Fernando substantially revised its production. Although he was not a radical proponent of the most genuine rationalist ideologies, his training as an architect at the Academy in Rome and his relationships within the cultural environment clearly pleaded for a renewal of the architectural language. As a result, his designs were informed by a refined modernism, a departure from the Parvis style for which the company was famous. After having attended the first Italian exhibition of rationalist architecture with a project for a sports club in Rome28 and the Italian Navy art show,29 Fernando went back to Egypt and took charge of the company. In an effort to make the public appreciate the modern style of furniture,30 he designed home interiors, public and private places, and temporary exhibition installations. Often, he was assisted in his work by his wife, Anna Balsamadjeva, a Bulgarian-born artist he had met in Rome, who was in charge of all the sculptural or pictorial decorations.31

Figure 11: Enrico Nistri business office, Cairo

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Source: Enrico Nistri private archives

Figure 12: Enrico Nistri showroom, Cairo

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Source: Enrico Nistri private archives

Figure 13: Enrico Nistri employees, Cairo

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Source: Enrico Nistri private archives

Figure 14: Facade of Enrico Nistri’s warehouse, Cairo

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Source: Enrico Nistri private archives

6The Berté & Gaeta company produced outstanding wrought iron for much of the early twentieth century. In the early 1900s, Luciano Berté arrived in Cairo from Sicily and started a small business which established itself in the local market and quickly grew from a workshop to an art factory.32 After Berté’s death, Vincenzo Gaeta (1900-1969) took over. Adopted when the Berté family was still living in Sicily, Gaeta had studied drawing at the Dante Alighieri school of Cairo and began working at the company at the end of the 1910s. In 1932, he officially became the factory’s technical manager and involved Vincenzo Berté, son of one of Luciano’s brothers, as administrative manager.

7Thanks to this wise division of roles, and to Gaeta’s technical abilities and shrewd entrepreneurial spirit, the plant was quite productive. It was awarded a gold medal and the honorary certificate of the 14th Cairo Industrial Exhibition in 1931; and in 1936, the certificate of merit at the Fiera del Levante of Bari. Berté & Gaeta was appointed “Official purveyor to his majesty King Farouk.”33 The gradual increase in workload necessitated a move to larger headquarters. The showrooms and production workshops, hitherto located separately, the former at 12 Soliman Pasha Street and the latter in the Bulaq neighborhood, were housed together at the new plant, covering 5,000 square meters in the Ghamra area of Cairo. In only three months, all the warehouses were built and modern machinery was installed. Offices and showrooms were designed according to architect Joseph Rabbat’s “rational style” plan.34

8The company achieved visibility and fame in the late 1930s. At the time, it employed about two hundred people as managers and skilled and unskilled workers. Its resources were its ability to adapt to changes in taste and its refined technical skills, meeting the specifications for highly complex orders. It could therefore diversify its offer, and had a highly varied roster of customers. In addition to making wrought iron for the royal palaces, the company was commissioned by wealthy private individuals, banks and insurance companies, and business owners who wanted to renovate their stores.35 Together with their more artistic productions, the company implemented metallic structures for factories and industries, and was involved in the works for the Aswan Dam, where it contributed its expertise and products for the construction of power plants. Orders also came from other Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. With the rise of Egyptian nationalism, Gaeta lost control of his plant, requisitioned when Nasser came to power, and in 1967, finally certain that he would never again manage the company he had helped to grow, he moved back to Italy with his family.

9In March of 1938, Il Giornale d’Oriente , an Italian-language newspaper in Egypt, dedicated an article to the visit the Italian Minister Count Mazzolini paid to the Berté & Gaeta company. The guest list offers a glimpse of the Italian community there at the time.36 In addition to the representatives of government institutions, professionals from various fields such as architects, engineers, contractors, and interior designers attended the reception. The interior designers included the Jacovelli brothers and engineer Umberto Bardelli, who represented the Enrico Nistri company, another of the Italian companies whose contribution played an important role in Egypt.

10Giuseppe and Enrico Nistri arrived in Cairo in 1901. Armed with the knowledge gathered in their previous experiences – including their apprenticeship until 1890 in the family’s workshop in Pisa – the two brothers started a business specializing in decorations, paintings, and gilding. It soon obtained great success, and received commissions from the royal family, other government institutions, and private individuals. In 1906, the two brothers decided to create two independent companies, possibly because of the heavy workload.

11Enrico Nistri (1871-1922)37 had taken interior design classes at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, and after having qualified, he taught drawing at the Reale Scuola Tecnica of La Spezia. In Cairo, Nistri was quite successful, winning several prestigious orders. At its peak, his company was employed a staff of about 200 people. Between 1906 and 1910, the company worked for public and private clients, collaborating with well-known construction companies and with international architects who operated in Cairo. Nistri offered decorations inspired by the traditional motifs of Islamic art, alongside a repertory which drew on figurative and typographical motifs from Europe. The gold medal won in 1911 at the International Exposition of Turin for the drawings reproducing interior ornaments of mosques, villas, and palaces38 was public recognition of the company’s contribution. Nistri directed it until 1919, when his grandson Gino Cattani and son-in-law Bardelli took over. In 1932, Bardelli was formally appointed chief executive officer. During his stay in Cairo, Nistri kept continuous contacts with Italy; he died in 1922 in Viareggio, where a decade earlier he had built his residence. The small villa was decorated inside and out with Oriental motifs, some of which had been inspired by the best ornaments of Cairo’s mosques. Parvis, Berté & Gaeta, and Nistri were the most visible businessmen in a network of Italian interior designers, artists, and craftsmen working in Egypt. Bibliographic sources suggest the network was much wider. Isolated individuals or entire families could maintain a decent, sometimes even wealthy lifestyle, thanks to the numerous work opportunities facilitated by the favorable economic conditions granted to Europeans. Using a vocabulary that drew on Eastern and Arabic motifs, often mixed or toned down with European suggestions and recollections, the entrepreneurs working in the field of interior design sometimes guided and sometimes met the taste of their clients, who were particularly sensitive to art and luxury. Some of the designers, gifted with business sense and caution, took advantage of the favorable circumstances and became modern entrepreneurial figures. To trace the journey of those who operated in this field involves a gradual reconstruction of a whole set of relationships, acquaintances, and skills which, in the early 1900s and for a large part of the twentieth century, contributed to the formation of a new and quite characteristic image of some of Egypt’s most important cities.

Notes de bas de page

1 With special thanks to the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of Cairo and the Centro Archeologico for having facilitated the bibliographic research and to Renato Gaeta, Enrico Nistri, and Roberto and Guido Parvis for having supplied information on their families.

2 See L. A. Balboni, Gli italiani nella civiltà egiziana del secolo XIX, Alexandria: Penasson, 1906, vol. II, p. 99-102.

3 Archivio storico della Fondazione Nazionale dei Cavalieri del Lavoro (AFNCdL), file related to Giuseppe Parvis. With special thanks to Ezio Godoli for this reference.

4 L. A. Balboni, op. cit., p. 99 and G. Corona, “Giuseppe Parvis,” in L’esposizione italiana del 1884 in Torino illustrata, Milan: Sonzogno, 1884, p. 273 states that Parvis studied at the Accademia Albertina. From the file on Parvis kept in AFNCDL it follows that Parvis attended in Turin the “Moncalvo” engraving school of Gabriele Capello.

5 G. Corona, op. cit., p. 273.

6 AFNCdL, file related to Giuseppe Parvis.

7 See Giulia Fava-Parvis Bernocco, A bordo del Persia: impressioni e ricordi, Turin: G. B. Paravia e C., 1900, pp. 33-45, S. Romano, Italiani ed istituzioni Italiane in Egitto, communication sent to the Committee of Palermo of the Società Dante Alighieri during the meeting held on August 13, 1905, Palermo 1905, p. 16-17.

8 See “Il signor Parvis. Industriale italiano domiciliato al Cairo,” in L’Esposizione Universale di Vienna del 1873. Illustrata, Milan: Sonzogno, 1873, p. 355.

9 See “Uno sguardo all’Esposizione egiziana,” in L’Esposizione universale di Filadelfia del 1876. Illustrata, vol. II, Milan: Sonzogno, 1877, p. 106 and “Le rarità della Sezione Egiziana nel Main Building,” p. 275.

10 See “I mobili dell’italiano Parvis,” in L’Esposizione di Parigi del 1878. Illustrata, vol. I, Milan: Sonzogno, 1878, p. 304, 632.

11 See G. Corona, “I mobili", in L’Esposizione Italiana del 1881 in Milano. Illustrata, Milan: Sonzogno, 1881, p. 193-195 and “Il salotto in stile arabo di Giuseppe Parvis,” p. 254-255.

12 See L’esposizione italiana del 1884 in Torino. Illustrata, Milan: Sonzogno, 1884, p. 310. Parvis is included in the list of the members of the 7th Division, 8th class (Industries of metal tools and furniture) awarded a gold medal.

13 See Esposizione Nazionale del 1898. Catalogo Generale, Turin: Roux Frassati, 1989, p. 370 and “Gli Italiani all’estero premiati,” L’Imparziale, n° 338-339, 4-5 December 1898.

14 See Manfredo Cagni, Egitto, Turin: Carlo Clausen, 1897, p. 216-219. “Quaderni dell’Istituto di Studi Verdiani,” n° 4, p. 142 states that Parvis was commissioned with the mirrors for the Opera House.

15 See “Al palazzo di Koubba,” L’Imparziale, n° 302, 29 October 1897. Parvis designed the main wood staircase for the palace restoration

16 See G. Fava-Parvis Bernocco, op. cit., p. 33-45 and S. Romano, op. cit., p. 15-16.

17 See E. D. Bigiavi, Dell’opera degli Italiani in Egitto. Relazione presentata al Comitato “Italiani all’Estero” all’Esposizione di Milano, Lenghorn: Stabilimento Tipografico S. Belforte & C., 1906, p. 47-48.

18 See S. Romano, op. cit., p.15-16.

19 See L. A. Balboni, op. cit., vol. III, p. 353-354, E. D. Bigiavi, op. cit., p. 47-48, C. Myntti, Paris along the Nile: architecture in Cairo from the Belle Epoque, Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1999, p. 14.

20 See L. A. Balboni, op. cit., vol. III, p. 355-357; G. B. Danovaro, L’Égypte à l’aurore du XXe siècle, with a preface in Italian by Pr. L. Balboni, Alexandrie: Lagoudakis Ed., 1901, p. 84; E. D. Bigiavi, op. cit., p. 47-48; Torino 1911. Esposizione internazionale delle industrie e del lavoro per il 50° Anniversario della Proclamazione del Regno d’Italia, Catalogo Generale Ufficiale, Turin: Fratelli Pozzo Arti Grafiche, 1911, p. 535.

21 S. Romano, op. cit., p. 15-16.

22 L’Imparziale, n° 88, 29 March 1898.

23 “L’arte italiana in Egitto,” L’Imparziale, n° 291, 1 April 1897.

24 S. di Monsanquirico, “L’arte italiana in Egitto,” L’Imparziale, n° 9, 8 March 1892. The author responds to a negative review of Parvis’s furniture published in a French magazine.

25 See “La visita del Re del Siam allo stabilimento Parvis,” L’Imparziale, n° 318-319, 14-15 November 1897; “A proposito del laboratorio di Parvis,” L’Imparziale, n° 356, 22 December 1897, quoting a passage in the “Egyptian Gazette” stating that Parvis’ workshop is a beloved destination of foreigners; G. Fava-Parvis Bernocco, op. cit., p. 42; S. Romano, op. cit., p. 15-16; K. Baedeker, Egypt and the Sûdân. Handbook for travellers, Leipzig, 1914, p. 41. G. Fava-Parvis Bernocco and K. Baedeker point out that Parvis’s plant is located in the old Musky bazar close to Muhammad Ali square.

26 Giuseppe Parvis was nominated Cavaliere della Corona di Italia in 1872 and Cavaliere del Lavoro in 1907, died on September 19, 1909 in Saronno.

27 See “Una visita di S. E. Paternò e del conte Volpi allo stabilimento Parvis,” L’Imparziale, Feb. 14, 1930.

28 See Michele Cennamo, Materiali per l’analisi dell’architettura moderna. La prima Esposizione Italiana di Architettura Razionale, Naples: Fausto Fiorentino, 1973, p. 261 and Maria Concetta Migliaccio, “Parvis, Fernando ,” in Architetti e ingegneri italiani dal Levante al Magreb 1848-1945, E. Godoli et M. Giacomelli (ed.), Florence: Maschietto, 2005, p. 267. Fernando Parvis was born in Cairo on June 30, 1901, and attended the school of architecture at La Sapienza University in Rome from 1922 to 1926.

29 See R. P., “Cronache romane. La mostra d’arte marinara,” Emporium, v. LXVII, n° 398, 1928, p. 118-124. Parvis took part in the exhibition presenting the furniture of a child’s cabin on a steamer.

30 See G. Galassi, “Un problema Egiziano. Cerco stanza,” Il Giornale d’Oriente, November 30, 1932. Galassi actively opposed further production in the Arabian style. Parvis agreed to that in a letter of response (see “Per la modernità della casa,” Il Giornale d’Oriente, November 3, 1932).

31 For Parvis’s works, see: “L’inaugurazione del galleggiante sul Nilo della Sezione Nautica delle o.g.I.e,” Il Giornale d’Oriente, April 24,1934; the “Arredamento al Cairo. Arch. Fernando Parvis,” L’Architettura, November 1935, p. 646-650; “Prima visita al Dopolavoro,” Il Giornale d’Oriente, February 19, 1935; “L’inaugurazione degli uffici dell’utrAs al Cairo,” Il Giornale d’Oriente, May 8, 1938; and “La cerimonia inaugurale della Mostra italiana del Turismo al Cairo,” Il Giornale d’Oriente, February 20, 1933.

32 The sources are unclear as to the date when the Berté workshop became active: 1899 (see Annuario generale delle collettività italiane all’estero e degli importatori e esportatori italiani, Trieste: Stabilimento Tipografico Mutilati, 1935, p. 198), 1904 (see “Il lavoro degli Italiani all’estero. La ditta V. Berté e V. Gaeta. Premiato Stabilimento d’Arte per i lavori in ferro,” Il Giornale d’Oriente, March 8, 1936), 1907 (interview with Renato Gaeta).

33 Annuario Illustrato della VI Fiera del Levante di Bari, Milan Rome 1936: Arti Grafiche Bertarelli. Incorrectly mentioned as Berle &. V. Gaeta, the company is exhibitor no. 493 and is included in the section “Art industries,” category “wrought iron works.” As for the title of official purveyor to the royal house, we refer to an interview with Renato Gaeta. For the information about the awards the company received during the exhibitions, see “La visita del Ministro d’Italia allo Stabilimento del ferro battuto “Berté e Gaeta,” Il Giornale d’Oriente, March 10, 1938.

34 See “La visita del Ministro d’Italia,” art. cit.

35 Bibliographic sources note that the furniture in white metal was much admired (see “Il lavoro degli Italiani” art. cit.).

36 See “La visita del Ministro d’Italia,” art. cit.

37 See Annuario degli italiani d’Egitto, Alexandria, 1933, p. 196; Annuario degli italiani d’Egitto, Cairo, 1939, p. n.n.; Annuario generale, op.cit., p. 232; A. Belluomini Pucci, “Presenze, immagini, caratteri dell’Oriente a Viareggio nel Novecento,” in “Presenze straniere e minoranze religiose a Viareggio, figure, documenti, testimonianze,” Quaderni di storia e cultura viareggina, n. 2, 2001, p. 167-185.

38 See Torino 1911..., op. cit., p. 725.


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