Piero Fornasetti Conchiglie Seashell Plate No. 2, Sea Star, Coral and Shells
Milan, Circa 1960-1975

This Piero Fornasetti porcelain plate is number 2 in the Conchiglie series. At its center a five-armed sea star, mottled in yellow-green and brown, lies among branching sprays of red coral, and around the border nine sea creatures are spaced against the white ground: a hermit crab in a zigzag-striped shell at the upper left, a mussel trailing a red tuft at the upper right, a razor shell and a round snail shell at the right, a chiton at the lower right, a scallop flanked by two small cone shells at the bottom, a small crustacean at the lower left, and at the left a tall spired shell and a top shell striped in red and white. The design is lithographically transfer-printed in black outline and hand-colored in the Milan atelier in red, brown, ochre and pale green, and follows the manner of the engraved plates in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conchologies. Most of the creatures are drawn true to life; some, in the Fornasetti way, are inventions.

The plate is on a white porcelain blank made by Eschenbach of Bavaria, whose green underglaze stamp shows through the printed Fornasetti mark on the reverse. The Conchiglie series was issued in twelve numbered designs, each with a different creature at the center and a different selection of shells around it.

Hung singly on a wall or grouped with other numbers from the series, the plate brings the coral red and sea green of the design to a bookcase, a powder room or a coastal house, and sits equally well on a plate stand among natural-history prints or shells.

Dimensions
Diameter: 9 3/16 inches (23.3 cm)
Height: 11/4 inches (3.2 cm)

Marks
Printed in black on the reverse with a spiral shell device numbered 2 above CONCHIGLIE, the hand-and-brush device, and FORNASETTI - MILANO / MADE IN ITALY, over the green underglaze stamp of Eschenbach, Bavaria, Germany.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

References
Barnaba Fornasetti (ed.), Fornasetti: The Complete Universe (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), p. 608, no. 140, a black-and-white photograph of eight plates with similar elements developed as prototypes for this series in 1947.

Historical Context
Shells and marine life were among the natural-history subjects Piero Fornasetti (1913-1988) returned to throughout his career, drawing on the engraved plates of old scientific books for his imagery. The Conchiglie design has its origin in prototypes of 1947, in the years of his closest association with Gio Ponti, but the colored series to which this plate belongs was produced in the 1960s and 1970s, when the atelier was working increasingly in color and having its porcelain blanks made by German factories such as Eschenbach for decoration in Milan. Displayed together, the twelve designs make a small cabinet of marine curiosities.

(Ref: NY10047-xum)


Condition:
Alterations: Original Condition Unaltered
Imperfections: Some Imperfections
Condition Notes: Good condition

Origin:
Italy

Creator:
Brand: Piero Fornasetti; Artist: Piero Fornasetti

Materials & Techniques:
Porcelain

Details:
What type of item is it? Vintage / Antique / Used
Country of Origin: Italy

Original Condition Unaltered; Some Imperfections; Good condition