Brazilian Modern Rosewood Credenza With Bow Design by Novo Rumo, Brazil, 1960s

Details

Description

Produced in São Paulo in the 1960s by Móveis Novo Rumo, this credenza is among the more architectural case pieces … Read more Produced in São Paulo in the 1960s by Móveis Novo Rumo, this credenza is among the more architectural case pieces to come out of the city's post-war workshops, and one of the firm's most confident statements in jacarandá.

Five doors run the length of the façade, each carrying the sculptural pull that gives the design its name: a slender bow of solid rosewood, carved to swell at the center and taper to fine points, standing slightly proud of the door face. In sequence, they turn what would otherwise be a plain rectilinear box into something with cadence. Behind the doors, paired cabinet sections flank a central bay fitted with a bank of drawers. Each drawer box is built in pale solid hardwood, hand-jointed at the corners, and shaped with a scalloped lip that serves in place of hardware — the kind of interior detail that separates Novo Rumo's output from most of its contemporaries.

The case sits on a trestle base of two vertical supports joined by a long horizontal stretcher, floating clear of the floor. Despite the length, it reads light.

The veneer work is the piece's real argument. The top is a full book-match, mirrored down the center axis, with dense flame and knot clusters repeating across the fold in near-symmetry. The door fronts carry the same continuous figure. Against the dark, saturated exterior, the honey-toned interior opens as a genuine surprise.

Móveis Novo Rumo operated through the 1960s at 383 Rua Roma, São Paulo, founded by Francesco Scapinelli — architect, ceramist, and brother of the celebrated Giuseppe Scapinelli. The workshop drew several craftsmen away from Jorge Zalszupin's L'Atelier, and the two firms' work sits close enough that Novo Rumo pieces are still routinely misattributed to Zalszupin. The house remains thinly documented, which has kept labeled examples scarce.

A long, quiet, deeply material piece. Equally at home in a dining room, an entry, or a gallery. See less