With IMAGO, Etereo presents its fourth collaboration with Nilufar Gallery — a long-awaited return that is not merely the presentation of a new piece of furniture, but the celebration of a rediscovered dialogue: that between artwork and everyday object.

The project is rooted in the refined tradition of Milanese authorial design, recalling that elective affinity which once saw Lucio Fontana intervene upon the rational structures of Osvaldo Borsani. As art once carved into and elevated function, Etereo’s new seating system transforms the sofa into a narrative vehicle— no longer a simple furnishing element, but a modular architecture destined to occupy the center of the domestic scene.

The three-seat sofa and armchair share a modular structure in burl wood with bronze details. The seat embraces the body with the depth of blue velvet — a tactile abyss that captures and holds the light. Yet it is the back that reveals the soul of the piece. A monumental spine in glazed ceramic, shaped by the masterful gesture of Venetian artist Pol Polloniato, transforms the object into a two-sided sculpture.

The ceramic becomes a three-dimensional surface articulated through three narrative cycles:

The Muses, the celestial world, the vegetal world. The formal balance lives through sensory contrasts. Burl wood, with its organic veining, dialogues with the precision of bronze details, while the vitreous brilliance of glazed blue ceramic creates a visual tension with the soft opacity of velvet. A continuous interplay of reflection and absorption: light glides across polished surfaces before dissolving into the generous seating volumes, offering a perception of the piece that shifts with the passing hours and the viewer’s position.

With IMAGO, Etereo and Nilufar reaffirm the value of collectible design: a return to the significance of furniture as a pillar of domestic identity, where each element becomes a fragment of narrative and every detail stands as a tribute to Italian artistic heritage.