Valentí

Few names are as closely associated with Spanish decorative design of the twentieth century as Valentí of Barcelona. Rooted in a long Catalan tradition of silversmithing, the house brought a goldsmith's sense of finish to lighting, furniture and objects, working in brass, bronze, silver plate and hand-stitched leather with a confidence and glamour that defined the most elegant Spanish interiors of the post-war decades. Its lamps and objects, at once sculptural and luxurious, are today increasingly admired by collectors and decorators beyond Spain.

The Valentí story begins with a dynasty of silversmiths. The family itself dates the founding of its first workshop in Barcelona to 1798. Catalan sources trace the line to Manuel Valentí i Forteza, a Mallorcan silversmith who settled in Barcelona around 1825 and was succeeded by his son Josep Valentí i Pomar. In 1864 a relative, Calixte Valentí i Pomar, established his own business in the city, and his son Agustí Valentí i Colom built in 1906 a Modernista building on the carrer de Sant Pere Més Alt, near the Palau de la Música Catalana, installing his silversmith's workshop on the ground floor.

According to the house's own account, it was the need to present its silverwork in a fitting setting that led the family to look abroad, to London in particular, for furniture to display it, and from there to the idea of designing furniture of its own. The modern firm took shape under Fernando Valentí Clúa, born in 1925, who established the present company and turned it into a full decoration house, its range embracing lighting, furniture, seating, silverware and decorative objects.

The house's lighting and objects of the mid-century are its most sought-after today. They reveal a remarkable range: brass ceiling lights with articulated shades, sculptural floor lamps in bronze and brass, some evoking palm fronds, table lamps in enamelled or silvered bronze, among them models featuring a stag, and lamps clad in hand-stitched saddle leather in the spirit of the great French designers of the period. Alongside them came objects of a distinctly worldly elegance, such as ice buckets in brass or Lucite with horse-head handles. In each, the precision of the silversmith's craft remains apparent.

Valentí later grew into a substantial international business, with workshops at Sant Pere de Ribes, near Barcelona, and points of sale reaching from Rome, Paris and London to New York and Tokyo. Yet it is the inventive, beautifully crafted pieces of the mid-century decades that have earned the name its place in the history of Spanish design.