About the house

Casa d’antiquariato. Meda, Brianza, since 1958.

The house

Urnica is a casa d’antiquariato in Meda, in the heart of Brianza, half an hour north of Milan. It occupies a building that has been dedicated to antiques since 1958: for nearly seventy years, furniture and works of art were bought, restored and sold here for private houses, architects and decorators across Europe. Urnica continues that tradition under a new name, with the same rooms, the same workshop and the same standard.

The place

Brianza is the historic capital of Italian furniture-making — the district whose workshops furnished the great houses of the Continent for two centuries. An antiques house belongs here among the people who made these things, and the building itself, with its high rooms and north light, is the first piece in the collection.

The collection

The house holds European furniture, mirrors, lighting and works of art from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, with a particular strength in Italian and French gilded and painted pieces. The range is deliberately broad, from decorative pieces in the old manner to period work of museum quality, and every piece is priced openly.

How we describe things

Every piece is catalogued in the same order: what it is, where it has been, materials and surface, what has been restored, provenance, condition, dimensions and price. Where a surface has been regilded or a plate replaced, the entry says so. Where a fact is not known, it is not invented. A written condition report and further photographs are available for any piece on request.

The catalogue

The catalogue is arranged in six categories — mirrors; seating; tables and consoles; cabinets, desks and beds; lighting; sculpture and works of art — and every entry can be searched by epoch, origin and material. Pieces are photographed in the house, in daylight, so that the catalogue shows what a visitor would see. What has not been sold stays in the house; what has been sold stays on the record.

Services

Urnica works with private clients, interior architects and decorators on the furnishing of houses, supplies condition reports and provenance research for pieces in the collection, arranges restoration through the house workshop, and organises crating and delivery across Europe through specialist art shippers. Enquiries are welcome at admin@urnica.com.

Urnica · Casa d’antiquariato · Meda, Brianza