Period: Early 20th century

Cantagalli pottery, measuring 125 x 67 cm, depicting a sweet Madonna adoring the Child Jesus and the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of the 19th century, Ulisse Cantagalli started an artistic production of ceramics, alongside his furnace along the Via Senese in Florence, which produced raw building material. Ulisse, born in Florence on June 18, 1839, to Giuseppe and Flavia Franceschi, ran the company from 1872, and in 1878, he hired an unemployed painter, training him to be a skilled maiolica decorator. By 1885, the company was already a well-regarded art maiolica manufacturer, and the former painter, now works manager, had about thirty painters and decorators under his supervision in addition to his two sons (Corona). Ulisse died on March 29, 1901, in Cairo, where he had gone for health reasons. At the industrial exhibition in Milan in 1881, the Manifattura Figli [Ulisse e Romeo] di Giuseppe Cantagalli of Florence, proving to be among the major manufacturers of ornamental maiolica, was awarded a gold medal "for the merit of the multiple reproductions of good style, as well as for the important attempt to solve the problem of producing objects with artistic character at prices so low as to make them accessible to the generality of buyers." Further honors were received later at the exhibitions of Antwerp, Paris, and London. The production approach, based on the imitation of ancient styles (Persian, Hispano-Moresque, Italian Renaissance, and Della Robbia masterpieces) and on low prices that facilitated sales and spread the taste for maiolica, brought the company great success, the conquest of the Italian market, and the opportunity to make itself known in many parts of Europe, America, and the East. To achieve a good stylistic and qualitative level, Ulisse had personally studied the examples of the 15th and 16th centuries, even with trips abroad. He had also studied the ancient methods of preparing the clays, coatings, colors, and firing, and had patiently trained the workers: modelers and painters had been sent to study the works preserved in the museums of Arezzo, Pesaro, Loreto, and other cities, as well as Florence. He had also maintained constant contacts with foreign scholars, such as the Englishmen C.D.E. Fortnum and H. Wallis, and the Germans J. Lessing and W. von Bode. The paintings and art objects published here are my exclusive property and consequently are always available to be viewed in person, by appointment, in my exhibition locations located in Sanremo and Brescia. The work, like all our objects, is sold with a FIMA photographic certificate of authenticity and lawful provenance; this document identifies the object, adding value to the article. We personally handle and organize the packaging and shipping of works of art with insurance worldwide. Dr. Riccardo Moneghini Art Historian