Piero Fornasetti Fleming Joffe Recipe Plate, Cobra a L’Indienne

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Description

Fornasetti Fleming Joffe Recipe Plate, Cobra a l’Indienne
Italy, 1967–1974

A cobra rears up on the left of this plate … Read more Fornasetti Fleming Joffe Recipe Plate, Cobra a l’Indienne
Italy, 1967–1974

A cobra rears up on the left of this plate with its hood spread, coils twice across the bottom, and ends in a beautifully engraved hand holding it up by the tip of the tail. Printed in black with the scales picked out in gold, and written around it in Fornasetti’s own hand-lettering is a recipe for cooking it: skin it, cut it in two-inch pieces, remove the poisonous head, sear it in salt pork fat, fry onions and mango with a lot of curry, thicken it all with a roux. Serves six.

Then the last lines, tucked in under the hand: the guests must be present during the preparation, and afterward they shall dance on hearing the sitar and eat enchanted. It is the snake charmer turned inside out — the dinner guests do the dancing.

These were never sold. A New York leather company that dealt in exotic skins gave them to its best clients as New Year presents, two a year for seven years, boxed in a case made to look like hide. The same company had Andy Warhol doing its advertising. This one comes from the collection of Gail Feingarten Oppenheimer, the Los Angeles art dealer behind Feingarten Galleries. Hang it in a kitchen or dining room, or stand it on a shelf in a study where people will pick it up and start reading — which they will, because everyone does.

Dimensions
Diameter: 10¼ inches (26 cm)

Condition
Some minor rubbing to a few letters, as is typical of the series; no restoration or damage.

A Little History
Piero Fornasetti (1913–1988) made something over eleven thousand objects from his Milan studio, most of them built on old engraved illustration put somewhere unexpected. This series of fourteen recipe plates was commissioned by Fleming Joffe Ltd. of New York, and the other designs are just as improbable: Snake a la Cleopatra, Python a l’Orange, Coquille Crocodile, Elephant Ear Soup, Tortoise Risotto. One is named for a synthetic leather DuPont launched in 1963, which was a joke at the expense of the client’s own competition.

(Ref: NY9850-A-icl) See less