Puccini’s plates

“Puccini Plates” exhibits a collection of ceramics produced by two important Italian manufacturers, “Richard-Ginori” and “Piero Fornasetti”.

Immediately after the very first performance of “La Bohème” in 1896, “Richard-Ginori” produced a set of plates, bowls and side-plates, masterfully decorated in polychrome, depicting characters from the opera (Mimì, Musetta, Rodolfo, Colline, etc.) and taken from sketches by Adolf Hohenstein. These were used to promote the opera. Curiously, the year of the first performance of “La Bohème” also coincides with that of the merger between the manufacturers “Richard” and “Ginori”.

The second section is dedicated to the opera-related pieces produced by the manufacturer “Piero Fornasetti”. These include two large plates for “La Bohème”, a set of eight side-plates dedicated to the main characters from “La Bohème” and “Madame Butterfly” by Puccini, “Carmen” by Bizet and “La Traviata” by Verdi, and an ashtray that reproduces the playbill of the opening performance of “Turandot” (1926). These ceramics, with their great chromatic impact featuring the gold backgrounds traditionally used by Fornasetti, give evidence of how the world of opera, and particularly that of Puccini, also affected that of “design” over the 20th century.