Designed by Giovanni Gariboldi in 1937 for the international exhibition "Arts et Techniques dans la Vie moderne" in Paris (mod 1647s), this pear-shaped vase draws inspiration from a recurring type in Far Eastern tradition.
Around the narrow neck is wrapped a fully three-dimensional reptile – referred to as a ‘salamander’ in price lists – depicted in the act of hunting with its powerful retractable tongue. Compared to the prototypes in Chinese ceramics, where the symbolic meaning attributed to the dragon image prevailed, here the pose emphasizes the threatening expressiveness of the animal with a much greater sculptural presence and great attention to naturalistic detail.
The delicate jade green glaze covering the vase in question may recall the Eastern type known in Europe as celadon, but it differs in being opaque and applied to a different type of clay body.
The Ginori Museum owns four other specimens of this model with a different color scheme (invv. 3525, 3526, 3553, 3554).
