Fruit bowl decorated with an undergrowth scene

The white porcelain pod-shaped fruit bowl displays inside a painted decoration depicting an undergrowth populated by a lizard, two snails, some butterflies, a wasp, and a snake. 

The decoration of this tray, signed and dated 1746, is the work of Anton Stephan Carl Anreiter, son of Carl Wendelin, who in 1737 was called to Doccia by Carlo Ginori as chief decorator. 

The composition, aside from some variations, can be traced back to a painting by the Belgian artist Karl Wilhelm de Hamilton, now in a private collection, perhaps known to Anton Stephan through his father, who had worked extensively in Vienna as a decorator at the Du Paquier Manufactory. It is certain that another painting by de Hamilton was used as a model for the decoration of a second fruit bowl made in Doccia by the Austrian painter, now held in a private collection. 

The date of the piece’s execution coincides with Carlo Ginori’s appointment as governor of Livorno and the painter’s definitive return to Vienna. Certainly conceived as an artistic and display object, its creation is linked to the inauguration, which took place in 1746, of a gallery of pieces exhibited to the public at the Villa of Doccia, mentioned by the English historian Thomas Salmon in 1757. That gallery, then used to show customers the finest production of the manufactory, is the first nucleus of the future Ginori Museum.