Original artwork description:

Despite extensive investigation - ie, venturing to at least page 5 of a Google search - I cannot definitively confirm that the design of this espresso cup stack originated in Italy, but I wouldn't bet my Ferrari Dino or a Gucci suit against it. Like the iconic Italian designed Moka coffee pot, this cup-stack is a classic piece of stylish Coffenalia: it has colour, form and function. It is the sort of everyday object that Swedish born American sculptor Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022) would scale up and use as a bonkers,10 storey high installation in St Marks Square, Venice. A large river-based online retailer will sell you a set of cups like this for around 30 bucks: this set was picked up in a Dutch junk shop for six. If he wasn't so busy painting the Mona Lisa or inventing the helicoter, polymath Leonardo da Vinci would surely have designed it. This cup stack is a living sculpture around which you can literally get your lips. Who'd have thought cups could be so interesting! Slurp.

Materials used:

Acrylics

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