Fornasetti Tema E Variazioni Porcelain Wall Plate No. 260, the Snail

Details

Description

Fornasetti Tema e Variazioni Porcelain Wall Plate No. 260, The Snail
Atelier Fornasetti, Milan, circa 2000

Piero Fornasetti’s muse, the … Read more Fornasetti Tema e Variazioni Porcelain Wall Plate No. 260, The Snail
Atelier Fornasetti, Milan, circa 2000

Piero Fornasetti’s muse, the soprano Lina Cavalieri, turns up here as a snail. On this white porcelain plate from the celebrated Tema e Variazioni (Theme and Variations) series, her nose, lips and cheek form the snail’s head and her eyes look out from the tips of its tentacles, while a beautifully engraved spiral shell with a checkered band coils behind her. It is one of the wittiest and most surreal transformations in the series, printed in crisp black on white in the style of a nineteenth-century engraving.

The plate has two hanging holes in the footrim, so it goes straight onto the wall. Hang it alone as a conversation piece in a powder room, hallway or study, or gather it with other Tema e Variazioni faces in a grid or salon-style arrangement over a console or bar. The black-and-white palette sits as easily in a minimalist white interior as it does among antiques, and it is equally at home on a bookshelf or mantel on a small easel.

Dimensions
Diameter: 10 inches (25.4 cm)
Height: 1 inch (2.5 cm)

Marks
Printed in black on the reverse with a black-and-white halftone eye, the pattern number 260 beside it, and below, in white on a black square, TEMA E VARIAZIONI above a hand holding a brush and FORNASETTI · MILANO / MADE IN ITALY.

Condition
Good condition.

About the Series
The image that gave the Tema e Variazioni (Theme and Variations) series its name is the face of Lina Cavalieri (1874–1944), the Belle Époque soprano celebrated as one of the most beautiful women of her day. Piero Fornasetti (1913–1988) came across her portrait while leafing through a nineteenth-century French magazine and was captivated by its classical features and enigmatic expression. He returned to it throughout his career, reworking it on porcelain plates as a sun, a moon, a keyhole, a balloon, a fish and, as here, a snail. In his own words, “I began to make them and I never stopped,” and he claimed more than 500 variations; the atelier records 299 designs by 1966 and around 400 today. Since Piero’s death in 1988 the series has been continued and reissued by his son Barnaba Fornasetti from the Milan atelier, and plates of this period, such as No. 260, carry the black square Tema e Variazioni backstamp. See less