Bespoke furniture studio Cappa e Spada combines ink transfer printing, layered paint and period distressing techniques to hand-build functional art pieces, with the Queen of Bohemia coffee table taking three to four weeks to bring to life from a 1613 oil painting portrait.
Tony is peeling paper from a wooden beam. Beneath it, slowly revealed, is the face of Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, painted in oil on panel in 1613. The image has travelled from a castle wall in Scotland through Tony’s memory and into his studio, where it has been transferred onto wood, layered with paint, distressed and assembled into a coffee table that will sit in someone’s home.
Cappa e Spada builds bespoke furniture pieces where every surface carries a story. The process begins with the artwork, applied to the wood’s surface through an ink transfer technique that Tony has refined over years, learning to layer paint and create textures and distressing that add depth and age to period images. Once the artwork is on the wood, the piece is assembled with furniture components: glass supports, legs, wood stain and glass, all chosen to stay within the period feel. The goal is always to make something completely new that carries the atmosphere of something much older.
“Everyone of our pieces has a function whilst every surface tells a story,” Tony says.
The Queen of Bohemia was inspired by a visit to Scotland where the original portrait caught his eye hanging in a castle. His long admiration for dark period artworks has shaped the studio’s aesthetic: that specific quality of age, shadow and weight that oil paintings accumulate over centuries, translated into functional objects for contemporary interiors. Coffee tables like this one take three to four weeks to complete, often longer depending on what the customer wants.
Cappa e Spada creates bespoke functional art pieces combining custom furniture design with unique printing techniques, designed to transform spaces through craftsmanship and visual storytelling.
Website: cappaespada.com Instagram: @cappa_e_spada
The Queen of Bohemia Coffee Table. Ink transfer on wood, layered paint, distressing, glass, wood stain. Based on a portrait of Princess Elizabeth (1596-1662), Queen of Bohemia, 1613.
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