Estate Find

G Laffi

Silver and Copper Bowl

Peru

We offer a small vintage 1950-1960s era hand wrought copper bowl decorated with an applied Pre-Colombian sterling silver bird. The bird is stamped “928” on the leg and the bowl is stamped on the reverse edge with "PERU G. LAFFI".

The five lobed bowl was crafted by Graziella Laffi and would have been sold in Peru at the Gino Laffi showroom Fábrica Laffi on Avenue Mexico in the 1960s.

The bowl weighs 3.7 ounces and measures 4 1/8" in diameter and 1 1/8” in height.

The hand wrought copper and silver Peruvian bowl from the workshop of Gino Laffi is presented in very good vintage condition.

In 1947, Graziella, then twenty-four, immigrated with her parents to Peru, where family friends provided entry into society. Gino Laffi exhibited at the Centro Italiano, displaying silver, gold and enamel, made before departing Florence. He received high praise and opened a storefront at the center of Lima with a small studio and showroom for his Florentine-inspired work. Following this success, he created a large studio and showroom, Fábrica Laffi on Avenue Mexico. There Gino produced silver jewelry and small objects for the Lima tourist market, while Graziella learned her father's craft. The works produced in this studio differed from earlier production as Graziella supplied designs based on a Pre-Columbian-inspired vocabulary of hummingbirds, pelicans and fish. This body of work is identified by the block G. LAFFI stamped on pieces produced for Gino at Fábrica Laffi.