"Oro bianco. Tre secoli di porcellane Ginori”
At the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, from October 25, 2023 to February 19, 2024, sixty works produced in Doccia tell the story of the Manifattura Ginori from the 18th century to Gio Ponti.
At the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, from October 25, 2023 to February 19, 2024, sixty works produced in Doccia tell the story of the Manifattura Ginori from the 18th century to Gio Ponti.
From October 25, 2023, to February 19, 2024, the Museo Poldi Pezzoli tell the story of the Manifattura Ginori from the eighteenth to the twentieth century through 60 works from the Museo Ginori, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, the Uffizi in Florence, the Museo Civico di Arte Antica in Turin, the collections of the Princes of Liechtenstein, and some important private collections.
«While waiting for the Museo Ginori to reopen its doors – explains Tomaso Montanari, President of the Fondazione Museo archivio Ginori della manifattura di Doccia – this exhibition curated by Rita Balleri, Federica Manoli, and Oliva Rucellai is a precious opportunity to tell its extraordinary story. A story that unites the entrepreneurial skill of its visionary founder Carlo Ginori (a sort of Adriano Olivetti of the eighteenth century) and the exceptional ability of generations of artisans; the gradual democratization of "white gold", which moves from the tables of princes into every Italian home, and the cultural and political growth of a workers’ movement that saw at Ginori the birth of the Società di Mutuo Soccorso in Sesto Fiorentino and later a season of struggles in which Don Lorenzo Milani also participated. It will be thrilling for visitors to discover what forms – towering, unexpected, moving – a material so common, like porcelain, has taken on over the centuries.»
The protagonists of the first room of the exhibition are the origins of the Manifattura Ginori, founded by the Marquis Carlo in 1737, documented by precious tableware items, large porcelain sculptures (including the Venere de’ Medici and the Testa di Nerva from the Museo Ginori) reproducing works of ancient statuary, and refined pairings of porcelain sculptures (such as the Laocoon from the Museo Poldi Pezzoli) exhibited together for the first time with their late Baroque bronze archetypes.
The second room opens with some nineteenth-century masterpieces of eclectic and exotic taste, such as the large vases made for the world’s fairs and the surprising table service designed by Gaetano Lodi for the Khedive of Egypt. Two large cists designed by Gio Ponti for the Ojetti family, finally, lead to the discovery of the artistic direction period of the great designer and the transition of Ginori (then Richard Ginori) from manufactory to industry.
