Pottery Decorative Dishes and Vide-Poche

Rare set of six decorated and gilded ceramic plates designed by Piero Fornasetti. This collection was specially created by the Fornasetti Atelier...

Rare antique Victorian 'dwarf elephant ear' majolica plate - hand painted green and brown tortoiseshell glaze to the center of the plate with a golden yellow border - impressed body ...

This set of six plates, crafted by John Turner circa 1795, features the exquisite Imari color palette of iron red, cobalt blue, and radiant gold. The color combination creates a vibr...

English Victorian Sunflower Box Circa 1890.

A Masons Ashworth ironstone baluster in the ‘Pheasant’ pattern on a striking orange glaze, made in England ca. 1910. Filled with chinoiserie imagery,...

Set of seven ceramic Majolica fruit plates. This beautiful set features two maroon raspberry plates, two apple plates, two strawberry plates and ...

A pair of trumpet vases in the ‘Sumatra’ dragon pattern on a striking orange glaze with cobalt chinoiserie details, made in England by Mason's Ashworth circa 1910. The ‘Sumatra’ pattern’s bold chinoiserie aesthetic is timeless, maintaining popularity across generations. It was rereleased in 1996 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Masons. These Masons ironstone china vases...

This is a pair of English creamware dishes from the 18th century, created around 1785. The plates display a lovely chinoiserie scene with women selecting accessories. The scene depic...

Rare, antique, large 19th century exhibition ironstone pottery vase by Morley & Ashworth, for the 1862 International Exhibition. Morley & Ashworth had taken over the designs of Mas...

Two pairs of maiolica baskets Antonio Ferretti Manufacture Lodi, circa 1770-1790 Maiolica polychrome decorated “a piccolo fuoco” (third fire). Measures: A) Height 3.54 x 6.69 x 9.84 in (9 x 17 x 25 cm); B) Height 3.93 x 7.48 x 11.02 in (10 x 19 x 28 cm). Total weight 4.85 lb (2.200 kg) State of conservation: A) One of the smaller baskets has some areas of restoration, the other slight chipping from use; B) One of the larger baskets is intact and the other shows a clearly glued break. The mold with which the baskets were forged simulates a wicker weave. The two larger works have high, vertical walls, with branch-shaped handles penetrating the weave. The painted decorations, small polychrome flowers applied only externally, highlight the points where the weaves intersect. The decision to leave the center of the basket devoid of decoration is highly unusual, but given the size and complexity of the shape, as well as the quality of the enamel, it is possible to hypothesize that it represents a precise choice in manufacturing or for a particular client. The two smaller baskets have small, twisted handles and, on the outside, reproduce more decisively the characteristic wicker weave, obtained through thin molded lines. The interior exhibits a rich, typical decoration of naturalistic flowers: a bunch centered around a main flower and secondary stems accompanied by small “semis”. The exterior of these works is also adorned with small little flowers where the weaves intersect. The size and morphological characteristics of the baskets confirm their attribution to the Lodi factory of Antonio Ferretti between 1770 and 1790, during its most successful period; by this point his original reworking of the "Strasbourg" decoration, known as "old Lodi", had achieved great fame even outside Italy. This decorative choice represented a strong point of the Lodi factory, which established itself thanks to the vivid nature of the colors made possible by the introduction of a new technique perfected by Paul Hannong in Strasbourg and which Antonio Ferretti introduced in Italy. This production process, called “piccolo fuoco” (third fire), allowed the use of a greater number of colors than in the past; in particular, the purple of Cassius, a red made from gold chloride, was introduced. Its use allowed for many more tones and shades, from pink to purple. The Ferretti family had started their maiolica manufacturing business in Lodi in 1725. The forefather Simpliciano had started the business by purchasing an ancient furnace in 1725 and, indeed, we have evidence of the full activity of the furnaces from April of the same year (Novasconi-Ferrari-Corvi, 1964, p. 26 n. 4). Simpliciano had started a production of excellence also thanks to the ownership of clay quarries in Stradella, not far from Pavia. The production was so successful that in 1726 a decree of the Turin Chamber came to prohibit the importation of foreign ceramics, especially from Lodi, to protect internal production (G. Lise, La ceramica a Lodi, Lodi 1981, p. 59). In its initial stages, the manufacture produced maolicas painted with the “a gran fuoco” (double fire) technique, often in turquoise monochrome, with ornamentation derived from compositional modules in vogue in Rouen in France. This was also thanks to the collaboration of painters like Giorgio Giacinto Rossetti, who placed his name on the best specimens next to the initials of the factory. In 1748 Simpliciano made his will (Gelmini, 1995, p. 30) appointing his son Giuseppe Antonio (known as Antonio) as universal heir. After 1750, when Simpliciano passed away, Antonio was directly involved in the maiolica factory, increasing its fortunes and achieving a reputation on a European level. Particularly important was the aforementioned introduction in 1760 of the innovative “a piccolo fuoco” (third fire) processing, which, expanding the ornamental repertoire with Saxon-inspired floral themes, could commercially compete with the German porcelains that had one of its most renowned offerings in the naturalistic Deutsche Blumen. Antonio Ferretti understood and promoted this technique and this decoration, proposing it in a fresher and more corrective version, less linked to botanical tables...

A set of 3 ceramic plates by Pierre Digan to La Borne. Perfect original conditions, circa 1970. Dimensions for one piece is: 24 x 24 cm.

Mason's Ironstone Garniture of Three vases, circa 1835 The three hexagonal-shaped vases are painted with polychrome flowers on a mazarine blue ground. The open-work handles, rim ...