Coffee pot, sugar bowl and creamer with daisies

This white porcelain set, consisting of a coffee pot, milk jug, and sugar bowl, is decorated in relief with bands of daisies on the body and handles shaped like twisted stems ending with a corolla. The three lids have bud-shaped handles, each different from the others. 

Overall, one can identify themes linked to the influence of English Modernism, which foreshadowed the new European Art Nouveau style. However, the floral motif, dear to the taste of the Pre-Raphaelites, is still presented here within a well-defined band according to a more traditional scheme compared to the later developments of Art Nouveau. 

The Museo Ginori collections also include prototypes of a saucer and two cups with the same decoration (invv. 7452, 7453, 7454), designed around 1896 by the painter and teacher at the Museo Artistico Industriale in Rome Alessandro Morani for Baron Alberto Blanc. The drawings - of which some watercolours are preserved in a private collection with few variations - were probably made by Morani while he was involved in the restructuring and modernization work of the Lezzani marquises’ villa on the Nomentana, purchased by Blanc in the 1890s. During this renovation, the Manifattura Ginori also produced the raised decorative maiolica elements for the building’s exterior.