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Models

Among the most surprising collections of the Museo Ginori, a place of honor is deservedly given to its remarkable collection of sculptures and models in wax, lead, plaster, and terracotta created by the founder of the manufactory, Carlo Ginori, "for the use of the factory," to produce porcelain reproductions of ancient statuary and the works of the most important late Baroque Florentine bronze sculptors.

This collection of models, which also preserves the only evidence of works lost or never realized, is a unicum in the field of eighteenth-century collector culture.

Massimiliano Soldani Benzi, Drunken Bacchus, terracotta, circa 1695

Drunken Bacchus

Eighteenth Century

Cupid and Psyche

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Laocoonte da Filippo della Valle, su invenzione di Baccio Bandinelli, con varianti

Eighteenth Century, Early Nineteenth Century

Laocoonte

Giuseppe Piamontini e bottega (attribuito), Sacrificio d'Isacco

Eighteenth Century

Sacrifice of Isaac

Eighteenth Century

Cameo depicting the Callipygian Venus

Eighteenth Century

Venus of Rome

Eighteenth Century

Massacre of the Niobids

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Eighteenth Century

Perseus with the head of Medusa

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Eighteenth Century

Allegory of The Rising of the Sun

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Eighteenth Century

Faun playing the castanets (also called Dancing Faun)

Eighteenth Century

Lamentation over the Dead Christ (or Pietà)

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Overall view of the centerpiece.

Gio Ponti

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

The ceramics he designed starting from 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 never 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 Déco taste.

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 has written some of the most significant chapters in the history of tableware art.

The extraordinary collection of table objects of the Museo Ginori tells both the birth of the shapes and decorations that would identify 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.

Useful

“Useful” products, such as everyday tableware, have been the true source of profit for the Manifattura Ginori since its origins.

From the second half of the nineteenth century, with the proliferation of ceramic applications in the industrial field, a significant portion of Ginori’s - and later Richard-Ginori’s – production consisted of insulators for telegraphs, components for the silk industry, and laboratory porcelain.

Finally, it is road signage, tiles, baking dishes, and pharmacy jars that mark the definitive entry of the Manifattura Ginori into the daily life of all Italians.

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