Coffee pot from a coffee and tea set

Italian designs of the interwar years are notable for innovative, unadorned forms, often suggesting a streamlined dynamism. Unsurprising, since it was the Italian poet Marinetti who, as early as 1909, published the Futurist manifesto that heralded the machine, urban life, and speed as the visual expressions of a new reality. Traditional coffee and tea services consist of a coffee pot, teapot, creamer, and sugar basin, each in a different shape reflecting its function. This service is one of the few known to negate those respective forms-each piece is identical except in size. When placed in a row, they successfully capture the essence of movement. Marinetti would have been pleased.