Traditionally used by European ceramic manufacturers to shape the handles of coolers and tureens, the acanthus leaf with its jagged volutes is the sole focus of the decorative motif on this vase, stylistically attributed to Giovanni Gariboldi.
Reinterpreting the ancient acanthus leaf motif in a modern key, the designer uses it as a precious lace that adorns the aqua green background of the neck of this flattened ovoid-shaped vase.
Its creation can be dated around 1946 when the production of art ceramics, interrupted due to the war, resumed both at the Doccia factory and at the S. Cristoforo factory.
Gariboldi employs lobed leaf motifs, more or less stylized, in several of his terracotta models dated to the same year (models 7416, 7418, 7479, 7483), some of which were donated by the Richard-Ginori Company itself to the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, where they are still preserved (inv. 1386, 1396, 1452).
The Ginori Museum owns another similar porcelain vase, but larger in size and painted in light yellow (inv. 3278; model 2128s, decoration 1991E) and a vase where the same leaf motif frames a figurative low-relief decoration (inv. 3558; model 2131s decoration 1995e).