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Drawings

The Historical Archive of the Museo Ginori contains about five thousand drawings, mostly dating from the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century.

A significant collection consists of the so-called ‘ricordi’ of the decorations, that is watercolour cards with handwritten notes used by painters to create majolica and artistic porcelain.

Equally valuable are the signed sketches (often attached at the bottom of letters) made by Gio Ponti when he was director of the manufactory and the numerous drawings developed by the best artists of the factory following his instructions.

Colored drawing of a vase with a handle formed by two snakes and a fish

Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

Sketch for mixing vase and other decorations

Early Twentieth Century

Letter to Alfred Brown with a drawing of a palm tree between two winged figures

Early Twentieth Century

Buildings for a plate from the series My Women

Early Twentieth Century

Design of a lamp with calla leaves and flowers

Early Twentieth Century

Study for a tree-trunk vase with female figure

Early Twentieth Century

Advertising sketch for the Ceramica Richard-Ginori Company

Early Twentieth Century

Advertising sketch ‘Henry Creange’ for Società Ceramica Richard-Ginori

Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

Study for the arrangement of the Ginori pavilion at the 1873 Vienna Exhibition

Drawing of a white plate with colored decorations

Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

Plate design with Raphael-style decoration

Early Twentieth Century

Preliminary sketch for the floor of the Loggia of Blessings in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome

Early Twentieth Century

Sketch for an urn-shaped vase with a decoration of women on clouds

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White plate with green leaves and two orange fruits

Ceramic tableware

Highly sought-after creations with an exotic taste, small sculptural groups made specifically to accompany desserts, services that have become true icons of an era and design prototypes: from the eighteenth century through the entire twentieth century, the Manifattura Ginori wrote some of the most significant chapters in the history of tableware art.

The extraordinary collection of table objects of the Museo Ginori tells us about both the creation of the shapes and decorations that identifed the style of the manufactory for centuries and the ability to rethink the form and function of objects to adapt them to the progressive changes in taste and the clients’ needs.

Overall view of the centerpiece.

Gio Ponti

The years in which Richard-Ginori was directed by Gio Ponti were one of the most artistically successful periods in its history.

The ceramics he designed starting in 1923 constitute a very important part of the Museo Ginori collection. Comprising more than four hundred works, the Ponti collection includes both small mass-produced objects and masterpieces that have never been replicated, such as the large vase La Conversazione classica and the imposing centerpiece for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Irony, elegance, and a brilliant reinvention of the antiquity are some of the ingredients that made Ponti’s production an international success and an excellent example of Art Deco taste.

Art Nouveau

Creatures with sinuous bodies, long flowering stems, and female figures immersed in nature are the most recurring subjects in the Art Nouveau repertoire of the Manifattura Ginori.

At Doccia, modernism initially appeared in the “Botticelli style” decorations of artistic majolica inspired by the art of the English Pre-Raphaelites, but it was at the 1902 Decorative Arts Exhibition in Turin that the adherence to the new style became more evident. Irises, peacocks, and sirens shape vases and furnishings with a sculptural emphasis that often made the addition of colour unnecessary.

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