Piero Fornasetti Fleming Joffe Porcelain Plate-Tortoise Risotto

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Fornasetti & Fleming Joffe: A Mid-Century Masque of the Culinary Arts
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This is an exceptionally rare Piero Fornasetti porcelain … Read more Fornasetti & Fleming Joffe: A Mid-Century Masque of the Culinary Arts
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This is an exceptionally rare Piero Fornasetti porcelain plate titled "Tortoise Risotto," produced in the 1960s as a highly original promotional item for the New York leather goods firm Fleming Joffe.

The plate showcases Fornasetti's signature surreal, trompe-l'oeil aesthetic: a realistically drawn tortoise is depicted with its hinged shell opened, revealing a sculpted mound of risotto crowned with a miniature tortoise. Above the image is the centerpiece of the design—a charmingly morbid and preposterous "recipe" that functions as a moral lesson:
"The tortoise may be encountered while driving along a highway. It may easily, in passing, be mistaken for a turtle. Take it home and prepare it as though it were. This takes hours. Before removing from shell, examine carefully. It is a rare and horrible sight. Disengage and slice. Saute the turtle in butter with capers. Cook rice. Discard tortoise and serve rice (risotto). This will teach you never to pick up a small tortoise on a highway. And remember—in cooking—nothing is more important than learning from your mistakes... There are so many more of them. All drama thrives on human error."
Part of a highly limited series of promotional plates, this example perfectly captures the witty surrealism and meticulous draftsmanship that define Fornasetti's work.

• Artist/Designer: Piero Fornasetti (1913-1988)
• Title: Tortoise Risotto
• Series: Fleming Joffe Recipe Plate Series
• Date: 1960s
• Material: Transfer-printed Porcelain
• Diameter: 10 1/4 inches (26.04 cm)

Historical Context: Corporate Patronage and the Art of Whimsy

This plate is a fascinating document of mid-century corporate art patronage, uniting Italian design with New York advertising creativity.

Piero Fornasetti and Collaborative Art

Piero Fornasetti was a Milanese painter, sculptor, and designer known for his prolific use of transfer-printed ceramics, which transformed functional objects into works of philosophical and often humorous art. This series is notable for using an extended narrative—the mock recipe—to convey a deeper, witty commentary on human folly and mistake-making, a theme recurrent in Fornasetti’s more philosophical works.

The Fleming Joffe Commission

The "improbable recipe" plates were a unique corporate gift commissioned by the small but artistically audacious Fleming Joffe company, specialists in exotic leather goods. Fornasetti created a total of fourteen different designs over seven years (given out seasonally at New Year to top clients). This limited production run makes the plates extremely rare and highly desirable to collectors.

A Nexus of Creative Genius

The commission highlights Fleming Joffe's remarkably sophisticated taste. The company was also a patron of American Pop Art icon Andy Warhol, who produced advertisements and showroom designs for them, and the beloved American poet Ogden Nash, who often paired his humorous verse with Warhol's drawings for the company. By engaging Fornasetti (Surrealism/Design), Warhol (Pop Art), and Nash (Light Verse), Fleming Joffe effectively positioned itself at the cutting edge of creative marketing, turning this plate into a key artifact of its era.

References
• Fornasetti, Barnaba (Editor). Fornasetti: The Complete Universe. Milan: Rizzoli, 2010. (Cites the promotional plates made for Fleming & Joffe, noting the theme of the "decidedly improbable recipe").

• Archival Records regarding Fleming Joffe's advertising campaigns and collaborations with Andy Warhol and Ogden Nash.

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