Botanical curiosities in the 18th-century decorations of the Manifattura di Doccia

In the decoration of the tableware from the Manifattura di Doccia, floral motifs are among the most recurring and distinctive. The oldest botanical-inspired decoration preserved at the Ginori Museum is the one made “a stampino”, which predominantly depicts stylized wildflowers in cobalt blue on the porcelain’s pristine white background. This color choice, explicitly inspired by the East, is likely the result of a desire to pay homage to the aesthetic tradition of the distant land where porcelain was born.   

Between 1740 and 1750, the same inspiration gave rise to the so-called "tulip" decoration, a reinterpretation of the peony flower, which draws on the famous Famille rose, a series of predominantly pink decorations created in China during the K’ang-Hsi period (1662-1722) and widely popular also during the Yong-Chen (1723-1735) and K’ien-Long (1736-1795) reigns. At Doccia, the "tulip" is offered both in a version still strongly influenced by Oriental styles, resembling the flower in the "cock's crest" variety, and in a stylized variant.

The floral decoration "a mazzetto," the most varied in the manufactory in terms of types of bouquets, is also presented in a double version, Oriental and European. Common across all porcelain manufactories of the time, in the Doccia repertoire this motif appears in 1737 under the name "a fiori ordinari alla Sassonia," likely because its introduction coincides with the arrival at the Manifattura Ginori of Carl Wendelin Anreiter von Zirnfeld, formerly chief decorator of the Viennese factory of Innocentius Du Paquier. It is thanks to him that the Manifattura di Doccia imported the brush-painting technique and saw the birth of its famous Pittoria.

The "European bouquet" found broad favor on the tables of the manufactory’s masters, who varied it in pictorial and sculptural compositions, enriching it with shapes and colors to continually enhance tableware and drinkware sets. Under the direction of Lorenzo Ginori, son of the founder Carlo, the manufactory replaced scattered or bouquet flowers featuring a central rose with a rococo-style bouquet with a symmetrical composition in line with the stylistic innovations imported from the Sèvres Manufactory.

Also dating from these years is the “roselline” (little roses) decoration mentioned in the inventories of the Manifattura Ginori from 1780-1788, inspired both by the French Manufactory of Sèvres and by the Faenza maiolica, which in turn were influenced in their choice of motif by the French ceramics from Rouen and Strasbourg.

The little rose, depicted realistically as an open flower or bud surrounded by small leaves, is combined with multiple decorative elements such as polychrome bands, denticulate arches, intertwined ribbons, or garlands of honeysuckle. 

Also attributable to this period is a variant of the traditional "a mazzetto" decoration, which evokes compositions found in Still Lifes. This is the "scattered flowers and fruits" decoration, first mentioned by this name in the factory’s inventory lists from 1780-1788, but already devised around 1770.

These compositions of flowers alternating with plums, cherries, strawberries, pears, and other small fruits appear as singular as they are playful in their asymmetrical representation, seemingly the result of a random arrangement on the porcelain surface. Their invention and frequent renewal are attributed to the factory’s craftsmen, who studied the elements from life, also taking advantage of the cultivation of 'exotic' plants started in Doccia by the Marquis Carlo.

Although the “a mazzetto” decoration was not a style invented by the Manifattura Ginori, the factory interprets it in a very particular way, continuing the Medici botanical tradition born around the Giardino dei Semplici, founded by Cosimo I de’ Medici between 1545 and 1557. This legacy is taken up by Ginori at a particularly favorable moment: in 1737, besides initiating collaboration with Anreiter, the founder of the manufactory also manages to hire the Bavarian gardener Ulrich Prucker (also known as Pruker or Ulderico Prugger), entrusting him with the care of his gardens at the family villa in Doccia, where he sets up a botanical garden with cultivations of rare and exotic plants, for which he has a large greenhouse (‘stufa’) built.

In volume XXI of his Present State of all the Countries and Peoples of the World (1757), the English chronicler Thomas Salmon devotes particular attention to the Manifattura di Doccia and, regarding the front garden of the Ginori family villa, writes: “a considerable botanical garden, abundant with waters that flow into a large basin, where a certain species of fish brought from China is visible, which are so vivid in their red, white, and yellow colors. There is the Citrus Garden, the French Fruit Garden, and the large Greenhouse built for rare and foreign plants. The management is in the hands of the botanist Ulderico Crucker, of German nationality, who the Marquis has kept in his service in Vienna and who was appointed by the Botanical Society of Florence to oversee the Orto de’ Semplici” (pp. 89-98).

In the following years, Prucker continued his work in Florence at the Botanical Society’s Garden and at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, while also continuing to care for the garden at the Mattonaia casino, owned by Lorenzo Ginori. In 1766 he entered into permanent service under Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo at the botanical garden in the Giardino di Boboli. The Grand Duke’s scientific interest is also evidenced by the founding in 1775 of the Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History. 

Having become governor of Livorno in 1746, Carlo Ginori continued to enrich his collection of rare plants, to which he also added a collection of exotic animals, largely intended for the menagerie that the Grand Duke was setting up from 1752 in the park of the Schönbrunn Palace, modeled after the one created in the previous century by Grand Duke Cosimo III in the Boboli Gardens.

Expeditions to acquire 'rare' plants and animals departed in 1753 from the port of Livorno, heading for Asia, the Indies, Egypt, the Persian Gulf, and Tunis. In 1755, they even reached South America, where the emperor sent his personal gardener Richard Vandreschot “to collect all the plants and other things he considers worthy to be brought to Europe for His Majesty's service in order to increasingly illuminate Natural History.” As documented by the review of invoices, this activity continued in 1756, when payments were recorded by the marquis in favor of Bartolomeo Alciatore “for the freight of crates, various plants, and birds brought by my ship from Marseille to this port for the service of His Imperial Majesty” and of Gaspero Giusti “for so many journeys from here to Vienna, with various animals and birds for His Imperial Majesty [...].” At Doccia, Prucker was instead paid “for the service of packing the plants arrived from America for His Imperial Majesty [...]” (AGL, Affari di Governo, file 33, insert Commercio d’America, ispezioni del dottor Jacquin mandato da S.M.I. nell’America per cercare animali e piante con due uccellatori datili per compagni da S.M.C., around 1755, p. 448r).

• L. Casprini, Dove sbocciano i fiori. I giardini e le porcellane di Carlo e Lorenzo Ginori, Firenze 2000
• A. d’Agliano, The early years of the Doccia porcelain Manufactory, in Baroque Luxury Porcelain. The Manufacturies of Du Paquier in Vienna and of Carlo Ginori in Florence, exhibition catalogue curated by J. Kräftner (Vienna), Munchen 2005, pp. 78-93.
• R. Balleri, La Manifattura Ginori di Doccia e l’eredità medicea all’epoca dei Lorena (1737-1824), in Fragili tesori dei principi. Le vie della porcellana tra Vienna e Firenze, exhibition catalogue curated by R. Balleri, A. d’Agliano, C. Lehner-Jobst, Livorno 2018, pp. 61-77.