By Piero Fornasetti
Located in Downingtown, PA
A porcelain plate from the celebrated "Themes & Variations" (Tema e Variazioni) series designed by Piero Fornasetti and produced by Rosenthal, Germany, in the 1980s — Motiv 13, one of the wittiest visual puns of the group. Here the face of Lina Cavalieri, Fornasetti's eternal muse, is multiplied into a row of buttons down a garment front, each round face-button paired with its corded buttonhole, while an oversized hand reaches in to fasten one. The trompe l'oeil rendering of fabric, cord, and polished button turns the muse into pure haberdashery — a sly comment on fashion, repetition, and the omnipresence of the archetype that drives the whole series.
The black-and-white transfer print is executed on Rosenthal's fine porcelain blank with a gilt rim. Marked to the reverse in a black circle: Rosenthal classic Germany over the Fornasetti hand-and-paintbrush device, "Dekor: Temi e variazioni Motiv 13."
Provenance: The Iris Apfel Collection. From the holdings of the legendary style icon (1921–2024), whose maximalist, narrative-driven eye made Fornasetti a natural fixture of her world.
Cavalieri, an operatic soprano, provided the face Fornasetti discovered in a 19th-century French magazine and returned to throughout his career: "What inspired me to create more than 500 variations on the face of a woman? I don't know. I began to make them and I never stopped." Rosenthal's small 1980s range of these designs — sometimes called Julia plates...
Category
Late 20th Century Modern German Serveware, Ceramics, Silver and Glass