1960s Piero Fornasetti Ceramic Appetizer Bowls - Set of Six

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Description

Piero Fornasetti Ceramic Appetizer Bowls, Set of Six, Peanuts, Sausages, Almonds, Onions, Olives and Cheese
Italian, Milan, Circa 1960

This … Read more Piero Fornasetti Ceramic Appetizer Bowls, Set of Six, Peanuts, Sausages, Almonds, Onions, Olives and Cheese
Italian, Milan, Circa 1960

This set of six ceramic appetizer bowls by Piero Fornasetti shows the graphic wit of mid-century Italian design at its most sociable. Each small footed bowl is transfer-printed in black on a white ground with a crowded trophy of musical instruments, among them guitars and a mandolin, coiled brass horns, woodwinds and an ocarina, drawn in Fornasetti’s characteristic engraved manner and continuing around the lower body.

Across the front of each bowl a ribbon banner names the intended contents in Roman capitals, with the classical V standing in for U: “PEANVTS,” “SAVSAGES,” “ALMONDS,” “ONIONS,” “OLIVES,” and “CHEESE.” The printed trophy is the same on every bowl, so the set is varied by its lettering alone. The interior walls are richly gilded above a white well, and the spreading foot is gilded en suite.

Used together on a bar cart, a drinks table or a buffet, the six bowls serve nuts, olives and small bites exactly as intended. The black-and-white print and gilt interiors sit comfortably in a traditional or a contemporary room, and the lettered banners make them a natural choice for a collector of Fornasetti or of mid-century Italian design.

Dimensions
Height: 2 inches (5.1 cm)
Diameter: 3 inches (7.6 cm)

Marks
Each bowl is marked on the underside with the printed black Fornasetti star enclosing a hand holding a brush, encircled by “FORNASETTI MILANO / MADE IN ITALY.” Each also bears a small gilder’s mark in gold.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition
Good vintage condition, with one tiny rub to the gilding on the foot of one bowl, very minor.

References
Barnaba Fornasetti, Fornasetti: The Complete Universe (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), p. 560, no. 13, where these pieces are catalogued as appetizer bowls, sold in sets of six.
Patrick Mauriès, Fornasetti: Designer of Dreams (London: Thames & Hudson, 1991).

Historical Context
Piero Fornasetti (1913–1988) was a Milanese painter, printer and decorator whose workshop turned everyday objects into surfaces for his surreal, graphic and often theatrical imagery, printed in the black-and-white language of old engravings. Musical instruments were among his most enduring subjects, and here he pairs them with the Roman capitals of classical inscriptions, lending a note of mock grandeur to a dish of peanuts. Bowls of this kind belong to the cocktail-hour entertaining that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, and the English labels reflect the importance of American and British buyers to the workshop. Barnaba Fornasetti’s Complete Universe records that the appetizer bowls were sold in sets of six, from a range of twenty-six designs.

(Ref: NY11056-iipx) See less