90 | SATURDAY | 30.04.22 | The Guardian
LIFESTYLE
Clockwise from above:
owner Manfredi della
Gherardesca on his
mid-century-style
sofa; blue in the guest
bedroom; artwork in the
bathroom; a ‘fake’ portrait
in the living room
to do with it, then I go ahead.
“I started collecting as soon as I
could put things together with my
hands,” he says, “from matchboxes
and little cars to books. I have been
collecting all my life.” In the kitchen-
dining room he displays a set of more
than 40 deep purple teapots (“I love
the aubergine colour”) and a collection
of 1930s boxes made from fossilised
crocodile skin.
“I’m interested in unusual, rare
objects, things that are culturally out
of reach.” But that doesn’t necessarily
mean that everything needs to be
100% original, he says. “ If something
is beautifully made, the fact that it is
modern is unimportant.”
“Here are two pastels, in Louis XVI
frames,” he says, gesturing to pictures
either side of the fi replace that appear
to date from the 18th century. “ These
are actually photographs of the
originals. Because they are under glass
they look real .”
He likes to imbue his pieces with
history, even if it’s made up , and has
imagined a backstory for a pair of
tables in the living room. “A grand
family maybe had the leftovers of a
chapel. Maybe they moved from Rome
to Florence and used some old pieces
of pietra dura [stone marquetry] and
turned them into these tables. That’s
the type of thing I like.”
The Life Eclectic by Alexander Breeze
(Hardie Grant, £30) is out this week