Letter to Alfred Brown with a drawing of a palm tree between two winged figures

The letter addressed by Gio Ponti to Alfred Brown, his contact at Doccia from around 1928, offers an interesting insight into the artistic director’s working method. Ponti starts from a graphic idea—in this case, the palm with a sinuous trunk flanked by two winged figures—and proposes several possible applications, including a sculptural group. The drawing was later produced at Doccia as a bas-relief on monochrome quadrangular vases with celadon glaze (mod. 840s, dec. 1275E; a specimen is in the Museum collection inv. 3243) or in biscuit and gold. However, as with other inventions he considered particularly successful, Ponti also adapted the idea for the earthenware of the S. Cristoforo factory, presenting it in a two-dimensional version, as a gold design on metallized black enamel.

The winged figures, hybrid and ambiguous creatures, ancient and modern at the same time, inspired many of Ponti’s designs for Richard-Ginori and other works throughout his career. Here we find them paired with the palm, an exotic motif itself recurrent in the iconography of the 1920s and ’30s, which Ponti himself used for two other decorative series alongside this one.