A Pair of Doccia 18th Century Hard-Paste Porcelain Leaf Shaped Sweet Meat Dishes.

A Pair of 18th Century Doccia Porcelain Hard-Paste Porcelain Vine Leaf Sweetmeat Dishes c.1780. The thickly potted moulded form with the underneath of the dish moulded with details of a vine leaf. These vine shaped dishes are a common Doccia form, however they are normally seen with a thick dark enamel applied to highlight the leaf and handle. The Doccia Porcelain factory was located at Doccia near Florence, it was started by Marchese Carlo Ginori (1702–1757), who was a gifted and enlightened politician. He reclaimed the marshes of Cecina on the Tuscan coast for use in agriculture and even introduced goldfish from China to the Austrian court. But his great passion was for porcelain, his factory at Doccia started in 1735, although the early period was experimental. Commercial production didn`t start until the early 1740’s, the factory is still in production today. Carlo Ginori shared Augustus the Strong’s love of large sculptural ceramics, wonderful large white porcelain figures and groups were produced, but the factory’s main output was functional porcelain, tea and coffee services as well as dinner services, fork and knife handles, vases, bottle coolers and many other objects. Doccia porcelain is sometimes said to be a type of hybrid hard-paste. A tin glaze, the so-called masso bastardo was introduced in the mid-18th century to make the finished article look brighter. However, the glaze was somewhat grey due to the tin content. Towards the later part of the 18th century a fine cold white paste was developed for finer quality pieces. The Doccia porcelain factory is especially important for the introduced a new technique called Stampino in the 1740`s, this is the earliest attempt at mechanical decoration on European porcelain, the technique involves a type of stencilling in blue and white.

See Below For More Photographs and Information