Gaetano Pesce Died at 84. His Furniture Auctions at Five Figures. His Wall Clock Costs $475.

Gaetano Pesce died on April 3, 2024, at 84 years old.

He left behind 20 works in MoMA’s permanent collection, pieces in 30+ museum collections worldwide, and a Compasso d’Oro Product Career Award from 2022. His Come Stai? resin chairs for Bottega Veneta sold at $6,500 to $10,900 each at Design Miami 2022. His auction results on LiveAuctioneers number over a thousand.

And on Coming Soon NY, his Round the Clock sells for $475.

We put that clock through our 145-point scoring system. It scored 8.2 out of 10. Here is what we verified and why.

The Resin Formula That Outlived Its Creator

In 2003, Pesce shared his resin formula with Andrea Corsi in New York. Corsi had previously worked as an export manager at Cassina, where Pesce had designed furniture for decades.

Corsi set up production in Milan. For twenty years, every Fish Design piece was hand-poured there.

Then Pesce died, and his final exhibition opened at Milan Design Week days later.

The Round the Clock is part of that legacy. Each clock is poured by Corsi’s team, stamped with the studio mark, and shipped with a certificate of authenticity. No two are identical because the hand-pour process creates unique color distribution every time.

What We Scored and Why

We evaluate every product across four dimensions. The Round the Clock scored high in three and stumbled on the fourth.

GLOW: 9 out of 10. Hand-poured colored resin creates translucent layers unique to each piece. Multiple vivid colorways photograph like gallery art. The material is the message: you can see the maker’s hand in every layer.

Nine colorways range from ocean blue to acid green, and two sizes (L at 42cm, XL at 77cm) give the clock sculptural range.

WOW: 9 out of 10. Pesce’s work lives in MoMA and the Met. He designed for Cassina, B&B Italia, Knoll, and Vitra. His Serie UP won the Compasso d’Oro Product Career Award in 2022. He died in 2024.

Each clock is handmade, unique, and costs a fraction of his furniture. The WOW score reflects a combination that no other wall clock under $500 can claim: verified museum pedigree across 30+ permanent collections, a design legacy that closed with Pesce’s death, and a production process where each piece is genuinely one of a kind.

MOMENT: 8 out of 10. The resin feels tactile and warm. Colors pop out of the box. The wall transforms the moment it goes up.

Light passes through the translucent layers differently at different hours, so morning and evening produce two different objects.

The gift keeps revealing itself: the recipient Googles Pesce and finds MoMA, Bottega Veneta, Dezeen, and the Washington Post obituary. Every discovery credits the person who gave it.

TRUST: 5 out of 10. This is where the clock takes its hit. Zero consumer reviews exist on any platform we checked.

Normally, that would be fatal. But Pesce has over a thousand auction results on LiveAuctioneers. His institutional record spans 30+ museum permanent collections including MoMA (20 works), the Met, Centre Pompidou, and the V&A.

The clock is sold at Coming Soon NY, The Webster, Selfridges, and Artemest. Each ships with a certificate of authenticity and studio stamp. We scored Trust at 50 out of 100 confidence.

The institutional record IS the review.

The Price Calculation That Matters

Bottega Veneta commissioned 400 of Pesce’s resin chairs for their Milan runway in 2022. Same material. Same workshop. Same hand-pour process. Those chairs sold at $6,500 to $10,900 each.

The Round the Clock costs $475.

Early 1990s Fish Design pieces already trade as vintage collectibles on 1stDibs and Catawiki. The clock sits at the intersection of three forces no competitor can replicate: the museum pedigree, the closed legacy, and a production method that guarantees uniqueness.

We set its “feels like” value at $800 based on the Bottega Veneta context alone.

Who This Clock Is For

Design collectors and design-curious people alike.

Someone who follows Dezeen or Wallpaper* will recognize the pedigree instantly. Someone who has never heard of Pesce will discover MoMA, Bottega Veneta, and the Radical Design movement through a single wall clock.

Both get the same object. The insider gets confirmation. The newcomer gets initiation.

We matched this clock to people shopping for someone who has everything. The person who has everything likely hasn’t explored Italian radical design. Pesce’s 20 MoMA works match their quality threshold, while hand-poured resin introduces an unfamiliar material.

We also matched it to housewarming gifts: a close friend’s new space deserves something beyond the candle-wine-book rotation, and the Round the Clock anchors a wall the way a painting does.

What Could Hold You Back

The clock is made to order with a 3 to 4 week lead time from Milan. If you need something by next Friday, this is not it.

If you prefer neutral, understated walls, the vivid resin will fight your aesthetic. And if you need consumer reviews before committing, we understand. Zero exist. We weighted our confidence score accordingly.

The Nelson Ball Clock costs $535 with 53 reviews. The Round the Clock costs $475 with zero reviews but 20 MoMA works.

Same wall, different century, different bet.

Our Verdict: 8.2 and In

Pesce spent 60 years insisting that objects should be as individual as people. His UP chair is in MoMA. His Serie UP won the Compasso d’Oro Product Career Award in 2022. Bottega Veneta commissioned 400 of his resin chairs for their Milan runway.

He died at 84, and Andrea Corsi continues pouring every Fish Design piece by hand in Milan.

The Round the Clock carries that entire lineage for $475, with a certificate of authenticity and the studio stamp to prove it.

It cleared our 8.0 threshold at 8.2. The trust score took the hit we expected.

The rest of the evidence is in 30+ museums.