1900 Italian Majolica Pottery Renaissance Boy Bust Fanchetti Ginori Della Robbia

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1900 Italian Majolica Pottery Renaissance Boy Bust Fanchetti Ginori Della RobbiaDescription:An antique Italian majolica/maiolica faience pottery bust.Renaissance boy.Possibly modeled on a sculpture of the period.Approx. 9 inches tall and 7 inches wide or 23cm by 18 cm.Hallmark on inside hand-painted blue under glaze.A compass inside a shield.Mark of Egisto Fantechi, Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze).Circa 1910or because there is no "Italy" mark,possibly earlier mark of SIFMA"La Societa Industriale per Fabbricazione della Maioliche Artistiche "(The Society for Industrial Fabrication of Majolica Art)of which he was part.See history of the Egisto Ceramics Factory below.Condition:There are scattered glaze missed or flaws in the making.These are not damages but in the making.Most notable are two. First is front center bottom edge. Again. this is not damage but glaze miss as can be see by the pooling of the glaze around bare patch.Second is at right arm at bottom edge. Again you can see the pooling around glaze miss, not a chip.Other lesser misses:Three spots on chin.One round spot on back of hair at right side.And a cluster of tiny spots one hair at neck.The only actual glaze damage is a small flake on top at tuft of hair over forehead and a cluster of three tiny flakes/abrasions on left ear.No cracks, no repairs.Please review my photos for best description of appearance and condition.History of the Egisto Fantechi Ceramics Factory1896 - 1905In 1896, seven of Florence's most gifted ceramic artists and craftsmen joined together to form a new artistic ceramics firm known as "La Societa Industriale per Fabbricazione della Maioliche Artistiche " (The Society for Industrial Fabrication of Majolica Art) and was known by the acronym SIFMA. The logo found on the underside of its products was an engineering compass (some refer to it as a caliper) inside a shield. This is also the symbol of the communal coat of arms used by the municipality of Sesto Fiorentino, where the factory was located. It has been also been suggested that some pieces were marked SIFMA, though I have yet to discover such examples.It was by necessity that SIFMA was formed. In 1896 the Richard Company of Milan gained control of the Ginori porcelain factory and merged into a new entity- The Richard-Ginori Company. The take-over meant a restructuring of the Ginori Company, which resulted in large cut-backs in personnel. This, in turn, meant that many former employees had to either seek employment elsewhere or risk building their own kilns and striking out on their own. SIFMA was created by Ugo Zaccagnini (sculptor and master modeler) who later became the most famous and successful of the group when he opened his own studio in 1905. The others were Giuseppe Conti (master painter and instructor), Augusto Fantini (master clay-maker or fornaciaio in Italian) and three major Florentine artists who specialized in decorating faience; Luigi Ceccherini, Francesco Grassi, and Paolo Banchelli. The last member of the group was Egisto Fantechi. Egisto was trained as porcelain decorator but it was not his talent that garnered him entry into this powerful partnership-it was his money. Egisto's family were highly successful building contractors in Florence and the buildings that housed SIFMA's studios and kilns were owned by Egisto.All the partners, except Fantini, received their formal training at the "Scuola d'Arte Applicata per la Ceramica di Sesto Fiorentino" (The School of Applied Arts for the Ceramics of Sesto Fiorentino). The school was created in 1874 by Lorenzo Ginori to train artists for his famous porcelain factory. All seven partners had been employed by Ginori. With all this talent and experience amassed under one roof it isn't surprising that SIFMA received almost instant recognition and public acceptance. In 1902 the company had even managed to win the Silver medal at the International Exposition in Lille, France.SIFMA's strength was in t... read more

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