Petalas Side Tables by Jorge Zalszupin, Rosewood

Born in Warsaw in 1922 and trained as an architect in Bucharest, Jorge Zalszupin emigrated to Brazil in 1949 and became one of the most refined voices of Brazilian mid-century modernism. In 1959 he founded L'Atelier in São Paulo, a workshop fusing the cabinetmaking discipline of his European training with the rich tropical hardwoods of his adopted country — jacarandá, imbuia, peroba — producing pieces that married Scandinavian rigour with the warmth of Brazilian timber.The Petala table, conceived in the 1960s, is among his most recognisable creations: a circular top composed of overlapping leaf-shaped rosewood segments, each hand-cut and arranged like the petals of a flower. This side table version retains the marquetry crown of the larger coffee model at a more intimate scale. Zalszupin's work is held in the collection of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo.