Majolica Ceramic Vase with Vine Leaf Decoration attributed to Nino Strada for Cima Deruta, 1950s

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Measurements:
height: 20 cm; width: 18 cm; depth: 12 cm; weight: 0.975 kg

item :
majolica vase, entirely hand-shaped on … Read more Measurements:
height: 20 cm; width: 18 cm; depth: 12 cm; weight: 0.975 kg

item :
majolica vase, entirely hand-shaped on a lathe, glazed, and decorated entirely by hand with a lightly raised vine leaf decoration. It features an elegant festooned rim and a flared silhouette with sloping flounces. The interior is coated with a glossy copper green (mint green) glaze, creating a sophisticated color contrast with the exterior. The vase dates to around 1940 and is signed "dervta" under the base with the catalog number "16/9" (identifying the shape code and the decoration variant), attributed to a design by master nino strada (1904-1968) for the renowned consorzio c.i.m.a. (consorzio italiano maioliche artistiche) of deruta. The use of classical roman capital letters, with the letter "v" replacing the "u," was a widespread graphic device in deruta workshops after world war ii, recalling the ancient epigraphic tradition. The work bears the characteristic period mark "dervta italy" on the bottom, hand-drawn in a thin, cursive script that specialist literature unmistakably identifies with the consortium's final period of activity, coinciding with the most mature phase of designer and export production under the leadership of nino strada (as illustrated in the photos immediately below this , with historical notes on the manufacturing process and some of the marks used, including ours, the last on the right). Further confirming our attribution is the presence of the fractional abbreviation "16/9," a coding protocol rigorously used by the manufacturer during that precise twenty-year period to identify the one-to-one correspondence between the shape of the ceramic body and the specific decorative scheme assigned to the surface. From a strictly stylistic perspective, the piece perfectly expresses the aesthetic signature and programmatic intent with which nino strada renewed the traditional umbrian repertoire between the 1930s and the late 1940s. The surface is entirely animated by a dense and meticulous vertical graffito texture that, by removing the glaze, allows the natural hue of the light clay beneath to emerge, creating a vibrational material plane with a twentieth-century influence. Against this rustic and geometric background, oval reserves, spared from the graffito, stand out by contrast, conceived as true modernist cameos. Within these fields, stylized vine leaves stand out, playing on a refined color palette of white and aquamarine. This iconographic and formal choice clearly departs from the historicist classicism and renaissance-style geometric arabesques typical of other contemporary masters of the craft, such as alpinolo magnini, establishing the object as a collector's item of high historical and artistic value, ideal for documenting the evolution of art design in italy.
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