Il sogno del capitonné
1966
Antonietta Raphaël Mafai's Il sogno del capitonné, painted in 1966, presents a mesmerizing trompe l'oeil meditation on luxury and tactile desire rendered entirely in sumptuous ochre and gold tones. The work depicts an infinitely repeating tufted upholstery pattern, evoking the capitonné technique associated with Victorian furniture, yet transformed here into an almost hallucinatory abstract field. As a pioneering Lithuanian born artist who defied the conventions of mid century Italian painting, Mafai brings a characteristically subversive wit to this late career canvas, inviting collectors to consider the seductive power of material comfort as both subject and visual experience.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
Est. Current Value
Collectors with works by Antonietta Raphaël Mafai
Artists in conversation
Agostino Bonalumi
Italian · b. 1935
Bonalumi created monochromatic Italian works that transform surface into tactile, repeating geometric relief patterns with an almost hypnotic optical quality, closely mirroring Raphaël Mafai's tufted upholstery field rendered as hallucinatory abstraction.
Enrico Castellani
Italian · b. 1930
Castellani's extroflexion canvases share the same obsessive geometric repetition, monochromatic gold and ochre palette possibilities, and trompe l'oeil tactility found in this work, transforming a flat painted surface into an infinite patterned field suggesting physical texture.
Yayoi Kusama
Japanese · b. 1929
Kusama's infinity net paintings share the same compulsive repetition of a single tactile motif across a large format canvas to create hallucinatory optical fields, directly paralleling Raphaël Mafai's transformation of upholstery into an abstract surrealist meditation.
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