GINORI'S ALCHEMY: TRANSFORMING CLAY INTO UNIQUE PORCELAIN

• Organized by the Fondation MIC– International Ceramic Museum in Faenza together with the Ginori Museum Fondation, the exhibition “Alchimia Ginori 1737-1896. Art and Technique in Manufacturing” offering a never-before-seen narrative of the evolution of ceramics in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The first hard porcelain in Europe was actually discovered as a result of the efforts of Johann Friedrich Böttger, a Saxon alchemist in search of the philosopher's stone. Long before that, the Florentine Medici family had been working to produce porcelain in Italy. But for 150 years after the end of the Medici enterprise, there was no progress in porcelain production, until the scientifically inclined Marquis Carlo Ginori began experimental work in his palace in Florence… The exhibition “Alchimia Ginori 1737-1896” at the in Faenza offers a comprehensive narrative of porcelain with numerous examples.

Through a wide selection of works and artifacts from the collections of Museo Ginori and MIC, the exhibition curated by Oliva Rucellai, Rita Balleri stages the dialectic between creativity and the limits imposed by matter, between aesthetic research and scientific progress, between tradition and the changing tastes of patrons.

The story begins in the first half of the eighteenth century, when Carlo Ginori, a chemistry enthusiast, founded the manufacture of the same name and personally devoted himself to researching the recipe for porcelain paste.The tour then unfolds into several sections devoted to porcelain sculptures and the progressive enrichment of pictorial decoration and color palette; to the innovations of Carlo Leopoldo Ginori (inventor of the four-story kiln), Giusto Giusti (the Manifattura chemist who rediscovered the luster recipe of ancient Renaissance maiolica), and the first artistic directors of the manufactory. The exhibition closes with Ginori’s transition to a full-fledged industry and a look back to the 20th century, when the newly formed Richard-Ginori would base much of its prosperity on the production of electroplated porcelain, not usually displayed in museum settings.

With this exhibition, MIC once again pays tribute to the richness of the Museo Ginori’s collections (currently closed to the public due to renovation work at its Sesto Fiorentino location), in continuity with the collaboration initiated on the occasion of the exhibition “Gio Ponti – Ceramiche,” hosted in Faenza in 2024. This comprehensive exhibition can be seen by porcelain enthusiasts until June 2nd.