Galvani - Dish (12) - Ceramic - Without reserve

Dishes with the same decoration are kept at the Civic Art Museum of Pordenone.


A beautiful 12-piece ceramic dinnerware set for 4 people from the Galvani manufactory in Pordenone: 4 deep plates, 4 dinner plates, and 4 dessert plates.

With floral decorative motifs featuring two flowers and a bud between the hem and the cord in yellow and brown on a white background.

Dating: around 1960

Mark present on the bottom: a stamp with a rooster head in profile to the left, with the inscription GALVANI underneath and the surrounding inscription DECORO ARTISTICO A MANO - MADE IN ITALY -

Diameter of soup plates: about 23 cm

Diameter of flat plates: approximately 23.5 cm

Diameter of flat dessert plates: about 19 cm

In excellent condition: no cracks, chips, or missing decorations (see photos).

Attention:
No shipments to the United States are made because in Italy, due to the introduction of tariffs, there is no courier that allows private individuals to send goods.


Galvani ceramics was founded in Pordenone by Andrea Galvani in 1811, production later carried on by his son Giuseppe, featuring decorations and shapes that did not depart from the limits of an artisanry aimed at popular markets despite ongoing technological innovations always pursued. This chapter closes with the end of the First World War and, subsequently, a fire that destroys the factory.

In the early postwar period, Enrico Galvani takes over, giving a new impulse to the company. The new frontiers of taste, after the Liberty era, are being traced at the main European milestones, culminating in the Paris Exposition of 1925, which marks the birth of Art Deco. In Italy, at the first Monza biennials and the two following ones, Laveno and Richard stood out, entrusting their projects to designers of the caliber of Gio Ponti and Guido Andlovitz, whose works characterized the 1920s and 1930s and continued to influence the decorative arts up to World War II.

Despite the rotation of consultants such as Teonesto Deabate, Gino Rossi, and Nino Barbantini, Galvani remained in the second tier of the era’s panorama, preserving a rustic and popular vein and little innovation in decoration; however, thanks to constant technical improvements, there is a notable rise in production, especially from 1925 onward.

In 1930, the most remarkable stylistic turning point in the Pordenone manufactory’s history is evident; this shift toward a modern language, already widely tested by Laveno and Ginori, coincides with the appointment of the Venetian painter Angelo Simonetto to the artistic direction.

Simonetto elaborates a huge amount of drawings and decorations destined for mass production, all in a Deco taste, with the aim of bringing to the more popular segment the refined and costly decorative proposals of Ginori-Ponti porcelain.

After World War II, work continues with a small production of hand-painted decorations, but there is a greater focus on decals, gilded lines, and gold stamps destined for the mass market. From 1955 to the mid-1960s, vitreous china is introduced.

In 1969 the Pordenone factory closes and moves to Valloncello, starting porcelain production. The last management was by Tognana, which, however, fails, ultimately closing definitively in 1983.