Nobody knows what makes open fire so appealing to people of the XXI century. Why most of us love campfires, log fires, candles? Why a dinner by candlelight evokes good feelings?
What if we associate naked flame with comfort and safety ever since our remote ancestors kept wood fires in their caves hundreds of thousands of years ago?
Anyway, most of us enjoy looking at flames, be it a fireplace or just a candle. Well, the latter is more achievable in a modern apartment. Candles aren’t the only source of light anymore – they are source of positive emotions, pleasant sensation and romanticism. That’s why various candle holders are in great demand, in spite of omnipresence of electrical lighting.
Bellavista Collection is a brand that specializes in Italian luxury furniture and offers a great deal of other items in addition to it. At the company’s website, you can find mirrors, lighting fixtures, boiserie, a variety of decorative statuettes, and much more. Actually, it’s quite logical for a furniture producer to offer these articles, because these items have one thing in common: all they make people’s homes cozier, or unique-looking, or both.
Bellavista Collection is aware of its customers’ wishes and preferences (including their penchant for candlelight), so the website of this brand has a separate product sub-category devoted to designer candle holders. Besides, if you love candlelight, there is one more magnificent article waiting for you in WHAT’S NEW category at Bellavista’s website, which contains the items designed in 2019.
As you know, Bellavista Collection regularly participates in at prestigious trade fairs. One of them – the 58th edition of Salone Internazionale del Mobile – took place this April. During six days of the event – from April 9 to 14, Bellavista’s exhibitor booth was a busy place indeed. Many showpieces sparked visitors’ interest, but there was one item that people just couldn’t pass by. There always was a group of visitors nearby, eyeing it with curiosity or taking pictures of it.
This showpiece was IPPO – a brass tray for candles. This amazingly looking tray with four cups for thick candles was attractive-looking in itself, but it was well-thought-out decorative elements that captured everybody’s attention. Сute lifelike hippopotamuses bathing and walking alongshore became an irresistible lure. What’s special about this tray is that you can pour some water to its bottom, and it turns into a shallow basin, where a few brass hippos are wallowing.
During the Salone del Mobile, this tray was smartly placed near the entrance, so that everybody who passed by the booth could see these nifty-looking hippos. Lots of the attendees called on Bellavista’s stand after a glance at this tray.
IPPO is worth all the attention it got. Actually, it’s a brass sculpture rather than a tray. It was cast using the millennia-old technique: sand-casting. Black patina finish, refined by hand, makes the sculpture look really elegant. Thanks to the sophisticated design, this tray turns heads instantly.
Wherever you place IPPO, it will always be in the focus of attention. It looks grand if placed in the middle of a table (during the Salone it stood on the ebony dining table named QUATTRO PASSI). The tray is rectangular, with four cups for thick candles placed in a row. As for the size, IPPO is pretty large but low: 88.5 centimeters (34.8 inches) long, 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) wide and only 7.3 centimeters (2.9 inches) high. The candles will provide enough light for the people sitting at a large dining table. IPPO will surely add spice to a candlelit dinner or a party: you may gaze not only at light of the candles, but also at their reflection in water, where the happy brass hippos are having a bath.
Attilio Zanni, the author of this sculpture (as well as all other items showcased at the event and the great assortment of extremely diverse pieces available from Bellavista’s website), heard lots of compliments from hundreds of people who were charmed with IPPO during the Salone del Mobile.
Bellavista’s long-term customers remember that this extremely gifted designer and the Bellavista’s co-founder has a weakness for hippos. Being an artist of a designer, he manages to show how graceful this animal could be. No wonder that cast brass statuettes of a hippo are very popular with Bellavista’s customers ever since 2010, when the brand came into existence. Also, some of the furniture pieces come with cast brass handles with an outline of a hippo on it. In the company’s catalogue this handle is named MAN-05. It could well be said that over the years a hippopotamus has become kind of a symbol of Bellavista collection.
Well, the hippo isn’t alone. If you visit products section of the company’s website, go to HOME DÉCOR category, and browse its BELLAVISTA DETAILS sub-category, you’ll see that Bellavista also offers сast brass horses, greyhounds, and rhinoceroses. They may vary in color (for example, FURIA – cast brass horse – is available in four differently colored finishes). They vary in style: while the rhino, the horse, and the hippo are definitely lifelike, the greyhound seems to be implemented in somehow modernist style. But all in all, these nice-looking statuettes serve the same purpose: they add spice to interiors or make an excellent present.
But hippos are still special animals for the Bellavista’s designer – it becomes clear when you look at IPPO tray with those attention-grabbing hippopotamuses walking near the shallow pool and wallowing in the water. This tray is, in fact, a true piece of art that can serve as a candle holder.
Now that the trade fair where it was first shown to the public is over, you can have this remarkable sculpture in your home. Put it on a table, light the candles, switch the electric light off – and add a bit of magic to a candlelight dinner with your spouse, a family gathering, or a party.
