Cosi Tabellini
A third-generation family workshop in Brescia, northern Italy, working in pewter since 1954.
The company was founded by Bruno Cosi, an apprentice who had learned the craft in a neighbouring Lombardy workshop, and began its first pieces in the basement of the Tabellini family home. Bruno's nephew, Sergio, travelled to sell them — first by train, then by Vespa, eventually by car, through Milan, Verona, and Venice.
Three generations on, Cosi Tabellini is still family-run. Sergio's children, Alberto and Daniela, now own the company and work alongside more than a dozen pewterers and master craftsmen, some of whom have been with the workshop for decades — it takes ten years to train from apprentice to master. Between them, the team holds roughly 350 combined years of pewter craftsmanship.
Brescia sits between Lake Garda and Lake Iseo, in an area known for centuries for pewter — a craft once centred in Venice that migrated west across Lombardy over time. Every Cosi Tabellini piece is still hand-cast, finished, and polished in this workshop, using techniques that have changed very little since Bruno's day.
The contemporary touch comes in the design direction, overseen by Alberto. Pewter is paired with local Italian ceramics, Brescian stainless steel, crystal glass, and cherrywood. The Convivio range — pewter-rimmed ceramic — is the workshop's best-known collection, joining the two materials so precisely that the seam becomes part of the object's character.
Pewter itself is unusual to live with. Soft and warm to the touch, it takes on a patina with use rather than wearing down — one of the few metals that genuinely improves with age. It asks for almost nothing in return: no polishing, only distance from open flame and strong heat.
Cosi Tabellini’s alloy is 95% tin strengthened with traces of antimony and copper, entirely lead-free and food-safe, and cast rather than pressed from sheets —the weight in the hand tells you.
Still Life stocks a small selection of Cosi Tabellini pieces, each carrying the workshop's factory marks, struck by hand — a thistle, a lion for Brescia, a 95 for the tin.