Piero Fornasetti Paperweight, Late 1950s

Piero Fornasetti Paperweight with "Key to Dreams" design.

1955-60.

Porcelain.

This is a great Fornasetti paperweight from Italian designer Piero Fornasetti's line of ceramic insulators, cleverly repurposed into paperweight pen rests and decorated with wonderfully wry designs. Very slight rubbing to interior edge of pen rest on top.

This is the very collectible English-language version of The New [Key] to Dreams, a post-Surrealist legend to dream interpretation. If you dream of a mushroom, it may warn of deception....a butterfly, of wantonness... and so on.

This insulator was probably produced by the Ginori factory for Fornasetti's Studio.

Mark: Fornasetti, Milano - Made in Italy.

See: A related paperweight in form and design at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Museum number: C.67-1985.
(http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O170023/paperweight-fornasetti-piero/).

Reference: (http://www.collectinginsulators.com/Commemoratives/Commemorative-Fornasetti.html)
Fornasetti Decorated Insulators.

What designs did they come in?

According to Mauriès (1991, p. 280), Piero Fornasetti made paperweights with electrical insulators in 16 designs. Unfortunately, no pictures of these could be found in the comprehensive and illustrated work by Mauriès but Fornasetti marked many of his insulators and used the same theme and illustrations for many of his designs, so his works are easy to spot.

Listed below, then, are the known designs.

There are variations to these designs but I am assuming that these variations would not be counted as separate designs. These designs can be labeled as 1). Calendars, 2). Alphabet, 3). The New Key to Dreams, 4). Clocks, 5). Fishing, 6). Pipe smoking, 7) Musical Instruments and 8) Butterflies.

What insulators were used?

It's likely that the insulators Fornasetti used were made by Richard Ginori and may have never been used on a line. In the foreword to Mauriès book (1991, p. 5), Wilk writes that "Fornasetti ceramics are, in fact, blank forms designed and made by the firms of Eschenback or Richard Ginori, among others, with Fornasetti decoartion applied". 

Since Eschenback did not make insulators and Richard Ginori did, Ginori seems a likely source. The insulators used are U-1668 and U-1714.

Dimensions

This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance

Stock number