Piero Fornasetti Zodiac Plates for Perugia, Complete Set of Twelve, Serie Zodiaci

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Piero Fornasetti Zodiac Plates for Perugia, Complete Set of Twelve, Serie Zodiaci
1963–1974

This complete set of twelve porcelain plates, … Read more Piero Fornasetti Zodiac Plates for Perugia, Complete Set of Twelve, Serie Zodiaci
1963–1974

This complete set of twelve porcelain plates, one for each sign of the zodiac, was designed by Piero Fornasetti and made to the special commission of the Milanese house of Perugia in the Via Hoepli, which issued a plate a year from 1963 to 1974. Each is lithographically printed on a white ground, the astrological emblem set at the center in coppery gold and black — the sea-goat with its glyph hung beneath it, the water-carrier as a mermaid emptying her urn within a chain, the two fish bound by a rope, the ram’s head in a looped cord, the bull within a heart, the twins seated hand in hand, the crab, the lion rampant in a cartouche, the draped virgin holding her medallion, the scales weighing an apple against a heart, the scorpion, and the centaur drawing his bow.

The emblem on each plate is enclosed by Fornasetti’s flowing Italian calligraphy, which carries a short and characteristically wry couplet on the sign — the Capricorn plate offering that the sea-goat is the aptest symbol for serving up good fortune on a plate, the Libra plate advising those born under the scales to give more weight to the heart than to the belly. Around this runs a border of gilt stars, and outside it, in Roman capitals set half upright and half inverted so that the plate must be turned in the hand to be read, the dates of the sign together with its lucky color, its stone, its governing quality and its besetting defect. The month names are given in the archaic Italian forms, gennajo and febbrajo with the old j. The year of issue appears in a cartouche at the foot of the face and again in the printed label on the reverse.

Individual plates from the series turn up on the market with some regularity; a complete run of all twelve years, with every label present as here, is a considerably harder thing to assemble. The palette and the dense calligraphic surround are typical of Fornasetti’s astrological designs of the period, in which Neoclassical emblem and Surrealist wit are carried by the workshop’s command of lithographic transfer printing and gilding.

Hung together, the twelve plates read as a single composition, in three rows of four or as a long frieze above a sideboard, banquette or bookcase. The restrained black, white and gold palette suits a dining room, library or stair hall, and sits as comfortably in a classical interior as in a contemporary one.

The Set
Capricorno (Capricorn), 1963. 21 December to 19 January. Color: black. Stone: sapphire. Quality: perseverance. Defect: misanthropy.
Acquario (Aquarius), 1964. 20 January to 18 February. Color: violet. Stone: hyacinth. Quality: generosity. Defect: disorder.
Pesci (Pisces), 1965. 19 February to 20 March. Color: indigo. Stone: amethyst. Quality: devotion. Defect: ostentation.
Ariete (Aries), 1966. 21 March to 20 April. Color: red. Stone: ruby. Quality: courage. Defect: impulsiveness.
Toro (Taurus), 1967. 21 April to 20 May. Color: blue and pale green. Stone: emerald. Quality: patience. Defect: stubbornness.
Gemelli (Gemini), 1968. 21 May to 21 June. Color: pale gray. Stone: aquamarine. Quality: altruism. Defect: exaltation.
Cancro (Cancer), 1969. 22 June to 22 July. Color: white. Stone: pearl. Quality: sensitivity. Defect: changeability.
Leone (Leo), 1970. 23 July to 22 August. Color: golden yellow. Stone: topaz. Quality: order. Defect: overbearingness.
Vergine (Virgo), 1971. 23 August to 22 September. Color: dark green. Stone: chrysolite. Quality: organization. Defect: slander.
Bilancia (Libra), 1972. 23 September to 22 October. Color: pink. Stone: pink beryl. Quality: sociability. Defect: dilettantism.
Scorpione (Scorpio), 1973. 23 October to 21 November. Color: garnet. Stone: coral. Quality: tenacity. Defect: rancor.
Sagittario (Sagittarius), 1974. 22 November to 20 December. Color: purple. Stone: diamond. Quality: goodness. Defect: vanity.

Dimensions
Each plate —
Diameter: 8¼ inches (21 cm)

Marks
Each plate carries its year of issue in a cartouche at the foot of the face. To the reverse each carries a circular printed label on a gilt ground, the number of the plate within a star above lettering reading SERIE ZODIACI / PIATTO SPECIALMENTE ESEGUITO DA PIERO FORNASETTI PER / PERUGIA / VIA HOEPLI MILANO / PER IL [year], the name of Perugia beneath a diamond device and the letter V, and below it the Fornasetti hand-and-brush device with FORNASETTI · MILANO and MADE IN ITALY. All twelve labels are present, the Capricorn plate numbered 1 and dated 1963.

Provenance
Italian private collection.
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge.

Condition
The set is in good overall condition, the lithographic decoration and gilding fresh and clearly legible across all twelve plates.

References
Patrick Mauriès, Fornasetti: Designer of Dreams (Thames & Hudson, 1991), pp. 224–225, for the origin of the annual calendar.
Fornasetti: The Complete Universe, ed. Barnaba Fornasetti (Rizzoli), for the commissioned and promotional series.

Historical Context
Piero Fornasetti (Milan, 1913–1988) was among the most inventive and prolific decorative artists of the twentieth century, producing tens of thousands of objects in ceramics, lacquered metal, furniture and printed paper from his Milan workshop, in an instantly recognizable visual language rooted in Neoclassical imagery, trompe l’œil and Surrealist juxtaposition. The annual plate came to him early and by way of Gio Ponti, who for two years commissioned a calendar from Fornasetti as a present for his friends, twelve drawings illustrating the months. Fornasetti carried the habit on for himself, taking the sun as his theme for 1942 in the Lunario del Sole, the almanac of the sun, and in time turned the designs into plates. From there the commissioned annual plate — made for a firm to give away, a new subject each year, the year printed on the face — became a form he returned to for decades.

Astrology recurs in his work from the early 1950s onward, and he took up the zodiac three separate times for three separate commissions, each running to twelve plates and each easily mistaken for the others. Serie Zodiaci, the present set, was made for Perugia of the Via Hoepli in Milan and runs in zodiacal order from Capricorn in 1963 to Sagittarius in 1974. Gli Influssi Astrali was made for Corisia between 1964 and 1975 and is numbered out of zodiacal order, opening with Capricorn as number one for 1964 and Leo as number two for 1965. Gli Zodiaci Farmacopei, the apothecary’s zodiac, was made for Crinos. The Perugia label records only that each plate was made for the firm for its year; the Corisia plates are recorded as having gone to that company’s best clients, and the Perugia set will have served the same purpose, though no account of how it was distributed, or of how many were made, appears in the published record.

(Ref: NY11193-irrr) See less