Piero Fornasetti Rosenthal Porcelain Themes And Variations Plate

Piero Fornasetti Rosenthal Porcelain Themes And Variations Plate,
Motiv Number 25,
Lady Bacchus,
1980s

Wonderful rare example of the small range of plates made by Rosenthal in the 1980s from Piero Fornasetti designs. This one depicts the face of Lina Cavalieri as a female Bacchus. These plates are sometimes called Julia plates.

Dimensions: Diameter: 9 1/4 inches x 1 inch high (23.50cm diameter).

Mark: in black and white Rosenthal/Germany over the Fornasetti hand and paint brush above Decor:/Temi e variazioni/ Motiv 25.

Piero Fornasetti's most famous work is, without a doubt, his illustrations featuring the face of Lina Cavalieri, an operatic soprano.  Fornasetti found her face in a 19th-century magazine, turning the black and white image into an iconic representation of his work. It was known as the "Tema e Variazioni" (theme and variation) plate series.

He said: "What inspired me to create more than 500 variations on the face of a woman? I don't know. I began to make them and I never stopped."

Reference:
Fornasetti: Designer of Dreams, Patrick Mauries, page 192.  Mauries writes: For Fornasetti, a single product never exhausted the possibilities of an idea.  He loved to let his imagination roam, finding more and more layers of meaning and association in the process.  Much of his work, therefore, takes the form of variations on a theme.

(Ref NY10242-iir)

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This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance

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