'White Gold' in Early to Mid-Eighteenth Century Venice and Florence - The first Italian Porcelain Factories and thei highly coveted production

Abstract

An inaccessible material both in terms of technology and manufacture for the aristocratic classes and the royal courts of Europe and especially for the prominent politically, socially and culturally Italy, porcelain was until the beginning of the eighteenth century an ‘impossible dream’ which only through a limited number of Chinese wares could be satisfied. However in the early highly decorative and playful Rococo period, its discovery in Germany inaugurated a new era in the European decorative arts. Hard-paste porcelain was soon introduced in Northern Italy and started being produced in the cities of Venice and Florence respectively creating a new order in the great historical field of ceramic arts. This initiated a long and, at the same time, glorious era for porcelainobjects production throughout the country, many of which are now rare examples of a valuable heritage in the history of decorative arts worldwide. This paper aims to document clearly and methodically the historical value of these events, focusing on the two first Italian hard-paste porcelain factories development and stressing the significance of their rare products.