The main idea was to make a piece of sculpture,” says Paris-based designer Mattia Bonetti of the fantastical dining table he dreamed up in 2003. “I was imagining something telluric, from an abyss under the surface of the sea or in a very deep cave. Trees, corals, bubbling volcanoes—all these shapes together become a table, et voilà!” Fittingly, he named it Abyss.
Sheet steel, because of its ability to be rendered perfectly flat, was used for the surface, while the baroque base was cast in bronze. Then, to achieve the glossy, electric hues in his imagination, Bonetti called upon a cousin, a professional gilder, to coat the table with white gold leaf and colorful transparent varnishes.
Meant to be a usable sculpture, it had, he says, “some requirements of economy. It needed a certain height [29.5 inches], depth [51.2 inches], comfort, and someplace to put your feet and legs under.”
The otherworldly creation, which made its debut at a show at London’s David Gill Gallery, was part of a minuscule edition of eight (two have yet to be realized) and costs around $300,000, plus shipping. (It weighs a whopping 838 pounds.) Still, despite its rarity, the table sprouts from the floors of tastemakers worldwide. Collector George Lindemann bought the first one, all pinks and golds, for his Miami Beach house, where it is joined by eight complementary chairs that he commissioned from Bonetti. Tiffany & Co.’s chief artistic officer, Reed Krakoff, ordered a narrower, blue version for his Paris living room, and, perhaps not surprisingly, Gill and his partner, AD100 designer Francis Sultana, placed a red-and-gold version in their Maltese palazzo.
AD100 talent Frank de Biasi, who decorated Lindemann’s home, explains the powerful appeal of Bonetti’s wild Abyss: “When the kids sit around it, it looks like a kids’ table, and when the adults sit around it, it becomes very sophisticated. It’s actually much more classical than you think.”
