Doccia (near Florence)—Hard and Soft Paste.—In the beginning of the last century there existed in the north of Italy families who had inherited wealth and honor, and who still retained their vigor. They may not have been many, but among them the Ginori were numbered. Italy has been living in the luminous glories of the art of the Renaissance these five centuries, and the light, as it seems to us, grows dim rather than glowing. Neither painting, sculpture, nor architecture, seems to-day to have more than a thin flavor of that past, when Church and state, noble and simple, combined to welcome the advent of a new artist. The production of porcelain belongs to the later time; but it certainly, in a limited way, shows signs of life and of originality more than any art of the later time, except, perhaps, music. To-day it is not so.
The productions of the south—Capo di Monte—I have elsewhere spoken of as not being servile imitations of anything, and as possessing much merit and originality. Of the productions at Doccia I have seen none, and the descriptions in books do not enable me to form any judgment. Of the maiolicas of Italy, now being reproduced largely at Doccia, I shall write hereafter.
The Marquis Ginori founded a manufactory near Florence in 1735, which is in a flourishing condition to-day. Inspired with the desire to produce work of a high character, he spared neither trouble nor cost, and sent a ship to China to procure there the clays which had secured the Chinese porcelain its peculiar character and its great excellence. Not only were services for the table and other articles for social use produced by the workmen and artists under the direction of the marquis, but almost immediately they were engaged in the production of statues and groups, in great variety, and some of which were half the size of life; many were modeled from fine work of the Greek sculptors.
The paste is said to have been of a high grade, but the glaze was then lacking in the finest effects of the Chinese potters. Having seen none of it, I am unable to say more than that.
A pair of vases from this factory, in Walpole’s collection at Strawberry Hill, are described as “vases with blue and white oblique flutes; they are of coarse workmanship, although the form is good.”
Forsyth, an English traveler who visited the factory in 1802, speaks of the works and the work very disparagingly, and says the latter was then much inferior to that of England, as it doubtless was.
In 1821, when the Capo di Monte factory, at Naples, was discontinued, the moulds were bought and taken to the Doccia works, and are still owned there. The peculiar work in relief, which will be spoken of under the head of “Capo di Monte,” is now made there, and is sold in considerable quantities, and often for the genuine Capo di Monte, from which, of course, it is not easy to distinguish it. Marryat states that this was made at Doccia, in the last century, probably from moulds procured then at Naples.
Sèvres shapes and designs were imitated at Doccia, and a large production is now going on of the maiolica vases and dishes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which are sold all over Europe and in America. In Paris are produced copies of these, not only in design, but also with marks to indicate age, intended to deceive the unwary. We do not believe this of the works at Doccia. Still, one can but regret that the public demand for these copies should be so great as to forbid original work there.
The artist most praised is Beccheroni, and his painting of miniatures is spoken of as “exquisite.” Baldassini and Tuppi are also mentioned in terms of high praise.
A note in Marryat’s volume says: “The manufactory now employs two thousand persons. Attached to the establishment are a fine park and farm, schools for the children, an academy of music for the workmen, a savings-bank, and everything that can be devised to promote the moral improvement of its occupants. In the chapel annexed are monuments in porcelain of the deceased marquises; and in the adjacent parochial church the high altar, torchères, candlesticks, ciborium, etc., are all in porcelain—an offering of the Ginori family.”