Since the second half of the nineteenth century, the Ginori Manufactory has produced porcelain objects for laboratory use. Among the items related to the production of objects for experiments or for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries are beakers with spouts, chemical-mechanical filters for purifying water, common and filtering funnels, mortars and pestles, perforated ladles or with spouts.
On December 3, 1940, the Richard-Ginori Ceramic Company of Milan registered the trademark Pasta Euclide, enclosed within a distillation flask on a flame, with the wording Richard-Ginori in capital letters below. For this reason, it is possible to date items showing this special mark to the 1940s. The Ginori Museum Archive also preserves a catalog of Pasta Euclide porcelain laboratory items produced by Richard-Ginori, unfortunately undated but almost certainly from the same period.
The porcelain of these items was of the heat-resistant type, that is, more resistant to heat, mechanical stresses, and the attack of acids and bases, and therefore perfectly suited to the intended use. The photo shows a funnel with filter inside (inv. 8169), a crucible with perforated filtering bottom (inv. 8143), and a capsule with spherical bottom and spout (inv. 8153), of the same type illustrated on the cover of the catalog Porcelain for Laboratory.
