PLACE REPRESENTED: Venice , Italy
ITEM: Display Plate
NOTES: A well detailed plate depicting Venice’s St Mark’s Square surrounded by pictures of all the major historical towns of Italy. This is beautifully detailed. Perhaps the extra detail is a result of it being fashioned and made in Italy?
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1960s
MADE FROM: Porcelain
MADE IN: Italy
MANUFACTURER: Fontebasso
DIMENSIONS: 19cm diameter
PLACE REPRESENTED: Siena , Italy
ITEM: Wall Plate
NOTES: This wall plate depicts the old cathedral in the heart of Siena, Tuscany. The plate is nicely detailed and has a border in gold, as it probably should, given that Siena has been declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
I loved the Stewart Granger film “Swordsman of Siena” (1962) as a kid … I have no idea if it was filmed there.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1970s
MADE FROM: ceramic material
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 19.5cm diameter
PLACE REPRESENTED: Pisa , Italy
ITEM: Ornament
NOTES: The leaning tower of Pisa is the most well known of the buildings in the piazza dei miracoli in Pisa but there are four great religious edifices: the Duomo (cathedral), the Campanile (the cathedral’s free standing bell tower), the Baptistry and the Camposanto.
Here they are captured in something 7cm long.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1980s
MADE FROM: hard plastic resin
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 6cm high , 7cm long
PLACE REPRESENTED: Arta Terme , Italy
ITEM: Wall Ornament
NOTES: A mass produced wooden artifact – insert town name at bottom.
Arta Terme is a province in far north western Italy which explains the slightly alpine look in the trinket. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arta_Terme
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1970s
MADE FROM: wood
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 8cm across , 18cm high
PLACE REPRESENTED: Milan, Italy
ITEM: Nic Nac Dish
NOTES: The Milan Cathedral (Duomo di Milano) in all its glory. The plate really doesn’t do the Gothic cathedral justice. It took nearly six centuries to complete … the church not the plate.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): unknown, 1970s probably.
MADE FROM: plastic
MADE IN: Italy
MANUFACTURER: Muzio, Milano
DIMENSIONS: 15cm wide , 10.5cm long
PLACE REPRESENTED: The Superga Basilica, Turin , Italy
ITEM: Thermometer
NOTES: I’m not sure what the guitar shape has to do with a basilica so I assume it’s a tribute to the Torino guitar from Turin (Torino being the Italian for Turin). This is a well detailed and elegant trinket and what you would expect from the less rustic Italian north.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1960s
MADE FROM: ceramic material , chain
MADE IN: Italy
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 7cm across , 21cm high
Remember to click on the photos for detailed large images.
PLACE REPRESENTED: Venice, Italy.
ITEM: Wall Ornament.
NOTES: Venice in wood?
Wooden folk art is something common throughout Europe but the idea of Venice on wood is interesting given that coastal Croatians swear that the Venetian Republic was built on Croatian lumber. The fact that there is very little top soil left along some parts of the Croatian coast, due to erosion from tree felling, may indicate there is some truth in that belief.
Putting aside any historical exploitation argument this is a type of tourist trinket I love: it’s hand made, though mass produced, with mixed materials, ie: a postcard stuck to wood and painted to create a vivid Venetian memory of the Piazza San Marco (St. Marks Square).
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1970s
MADE FROM: wood, paper, paint.
MADE IN: Unknown, Italy probably.
MANUFACTURER: unknown.
DIMENSIONS: 22cm high, 11cm wide