Ruffled Bottle

This extraordinary ruffled wine bottle, with a rich luster glaze in silver, gold and blue highlights, resulted from the collaboration of Pietro Melandri and Gio Ponti, two of Italy's greatest decorative artists of the twentieth century. Melandri, trained as a painter, became interested in ceramics after the First World War. In 1933 he was favorably reviewed in Gio Ponti's design journal Domus. Beginning in the mid-1930s, Ponti contributed designs for the ceramist to fabricate. This design is radically different from Ponti's elaborately painted compositions for the ceramic manufacturer Richard-Ginori. The original paper labels are still in place.

Marks: Painted Melandri-Ponti, Faenza.