space of the week

Circular Economy

Russell Piccione’s brownstone in Murray Hill is full of the orphaned and particular.

The sitting room. Photo: Jason Schmidt
The sitting room. Photo: Jason Schmidt

Interior designer Russell Piccione has an eclectic eye. Six years ago, he spied a massive concave mirror in the window of the Chloé boutique on Madison Avenue — an Olafur Eliasson–esque prop, then facing the end of its shopper-beguiling life. Now it’s the unavoidable glittery thing in the sitting room of the Murray Hill brownstone he rents with his partner, Antonio Haslauer. The 14-foot ceilings of his parlor floor dwarfed even his painting from the studio of Veronese, but this would surely pack a punch when juxtaposed with the settee upholstered in sapphire-blue mohair velvet, which he’d bought at auction because it was, he thought, “such a strong example of the period and the idea of furniture as ‘fantasy architecture.’ ”

This five-story, 25-room house from the 1890s “has a lot of souvenirs of hard times,” Piccione says. But it was its tattered beauty — and the space it provided for his nearly 9,000 books — that drew him in with its possibilities. There was room for a Campana Brothers screen to wend its way up the stairwell; it was one of several “made for São Paulo for Fashion Week years ago, when shows were held in the Niemeyer pavilion in the park,” he says. This screen was a perfect foil to skew the brownstone’s Gilded Age architecture.

Foyer: Francis Jennings’s 1960s geometric abstraction, bought at the estate sale of the artist, dominates the wall (left) opposite the Campana Brothers’ Zig Zag panel, originally made for São Paulo Fashion Week, that continues up the stairwell. Photo: Jason Schmidt

Everything in the house, it seems, has an unusual provenance. Take the French wax-figure centerpiece in the library: “It was deaccessioned from the Met,” he says. “And Met people said they loved it but couldn’t make anything of it, and I couldn’t find out how it made its way into the collection. Minor damages and possibly uncertainty about it kept it in perpetual storage at the museum, a genuine curiosity. I was attracted by its ephemeral nature — delicate wax figures that survived two centuries. Then, a guest at a dinner party, a London art dealer, brings forth a theory that underscored my attraction to it. He was reminded of drawings of the table decorations at the banquet to celebrate the wedding of Napoleon and Marie Louise — figures in wax and some in sugar. He made a very good case for it!” This is what Piccione loves, this connection across time to “people marking a moment in their lives and fashioning their optimism and gladness into little wax companions to a festive meal. Brilliant!”

Why aren’t they in the market to buy? “I mean, renting allows you to live much beyond your means,” he says, laughing. “I fear maybe a little less now, but New York is really a renter city. It always has been.”

The Library: The French wax-figure centerpiece under glass, depicting a chariot (ca. 1810), sits on top of the early-18th-century gilt-gesso center table. The display is taken in by the continuous gaze of the American sculptor Horatio Greenough’s bust, above. Photo: Jason Schmidt
From left: Sitting Room: A Nahum Parker American settee, ca. 1830, in mohair velvet sits beneath the large reflector on the wall, which Piccione fell for when he saw it as a prop in a store window. Photo: Jason SchmidtSitting-Room Fireplace: The fireplace faces a 1950s American sectional cocktail bench, and a Danish 1960s ceiling light hangs overhead. An English mirror, ca. 1830, hangs above a Bell Krater, attributed to the Dolon Painter, ca. 400 BC, Magna Grecia. Photo: Jason Schmidt
From top: Sitting Room: A Nahum Parker American settee, ca. 1830, in mohair velvet sits beneath the large reflector on the wall, which Piccione fell f... From top: Sitting Room: A Nahum Parker American settee, ca. 1830, in mohair velvet sits beneath the large reflector on the wall, which Piccione fell for when he saw it as a prop in a store window. Photo: Jason SchmidtSitting-Room Fireplace: The fireplace faces a 1950s American sectional cocktail bench, and a Danish 1960s ceiling light hangs overhead. An English mirror, ca. 1830, hangs above a Bell Krater, attributed to the Dolon Painter, ca. 400 BC, Magna Grecia. Photo: Jason Schmidt
The Study: Another Jennings hangs behind a Maison Jansen desk from the 1960s. The Edo-period Japanese screen continues the palette of gold and saffron from the 1950s American side chairs beneath Gio Ponti’s studies for a book cover. Piccione bought them from the Ponti family in Milan. Photo: Jason Schmidt
The Study: An Arne Jacobsen Swan Chair lives beside an Erno Fabry coffee table, and a 1910s Secessionist white painted settee. The Jennings figural abstraction from the 1950s dominates the wall to the left of the fireplace. Photo: Jason Schmidt
From left: Dining Room: Piccione designed the banquette beneath the Studio of Veronese painting The Choice Between Virtue and Vice, ca. 1565. The dining table is a three-pedestal English George III, and the Zig Zag chairs were originally designed by the Campana Brothers for a restaurant in Paris. Jean Prouvé’s Potence lamp extends over the table. Photo: Jason SchmidtDining Room: A Steven Gontarski photograph, ca. 2005, hangs in the company of Milton Dacosta paintings and a set of George III candlestick holders, ca. 1770. Photo: Jason Schmidt
From top: Dining Room: Piccione designed the banquette beneath the Studio of Veronese painting The Choice Between Virtue and Vice, ca. 1565. The dinin... From top: Dining Room: Piccione designed the banquette beneath the Studio of Veronese painting The Choice Between Virtue and Vice, ca. 1565. The dining table is a three-pedestal English George III, and the Zig Zag chairs were originally designed by the Campana Brothers for a restaurant in Paris. Jean Prouvé’s Potence lamp extends over the table. Photo: Jason SchmidtDining Room: A Steven Gontarski photograph, ca. 2005, hangs in the company of Milton Dacosta paintings and a set of George III candlestick holders, ca. 1770. Photo: Jason Schmidt

*A version of this article appears in the February 3, 2020, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

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