DOCCIA c.1755 – 1770 Italian Hard-Paste Porcelain
A Pair of Large Doccia Porcelain Wine Bottle Coolers and Covers c.1755-1770. Decorated with the Tulipano Pattern. The Center Decorated with a Tulip Flower in the Chinese Style
SOLD
- Condition
- First Bottle Cooler : One large crack c.88 mm to the cooler, the cover is perfect. Second Bottle Cooler : Perfect.
- Size
- Height : 19.2 cm (7 1/2 inches).
- Provenance
- N/A
- Stock number
- 21820
- References
- For two examples of the Doccia Tulipano pattern see : Lucca e le Porcellane Della Manifattura Ginori (Fondazione Centro Studi Sull`arte Licia E Carlo Ludovico Ragghainti,2001) page 107, plate 38 and page 135, plate 72.
Photos
Information
The Doccia Porcelain Factory :
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 a type of hybrid hard-paste, the so-called masso bastardo. The paste is somewhat grey, frequently showing `firing cracks`. The lead-glaze that was used in the 18th century is also rather grey, sometimes this greyness can be quite pronounced, the tin-oxide glaze can sometimes have an orange-peel effect caused but tiny burst bubbles, this gives a slightly dull appearance. Towards the later part of the 18th century a fine cold white paste was developed for finer quality pieces. The Doccia 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.