Terracotta Seat from Signa, Italy, 19th Century

VERY RARE TERRACOTTA SEAT FROM THE SIGNA MANUFACTURE 19th Century Italy Height 72 cm Width 65 cm Depth 60 cm Weight 36 Kg Manufacturing Signa Manufacture Material Light terracotta (melletta d'Arno) good condition Handmade by the famous Bondi Brothers Manufacture Signa Manufacture is a historic terracotta ceramic workshop. It was created in 1895 by Camillo Bondi. " At the beginning of the twentieth century, Signa was still one of the major industrial centers of straw. To that industry, which had made the name of the town known beyond the national borders, another activity had been added which, from the last five years of the nineteenth century and in a short space of years, would relaunch its name on the European and American markets: the artistic terracotta industry "Manifattura di Signa", founded in Signa (Florence), in 1895 by Camillo Bondi, in the premises of the "Fornaci di Signa" factory owned by his brother Angelo. At that time, the taste for the false antique continued to seduce with all its charm, and in ceramics the interest in tradition had pushed the most important Italian manufacturers to revisit Renaissance forms and decorations, reaching with a high level of artisanal expertise the ancient virtuosity of the historiated and the grotesque. If those productions interpreted the antique with eclecticism typical of the nineteenth century, the Manifattura di Signa instead, he aimed for the perfect resemblance of the real, both through the forms cast when possible on the original, and by means of patinas simulating those of marbles and bronzes and even the damage of time, in order to obtain the appearance of the authentic piece, both visually and tactilely and, in certain bronzes, even in sound. with this spirit, reproductions of sculptural and decorative masterpieces of all times will take shape from the Arno mud: from Etruscan to Greek statuary, from Roman to Renaissance, from Moorish vases to contemporary Art Nouveau creations. The resulting success, demonstrated by numerous exhibition awards such as the medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, where he exhibited numerous plastic terracottas, suitable for decorating exteriors, with a particular patina that improved their appearance and increased resistance to atmospheric agents, soon expanded the number of occupations and the specialization of young artists supported by the experience of sculptors of excellent fame, called to Signa for new ideas by the Bondi brothers, the brilliant founders and managers of the Manufacture, coming from a family of the upper middle class Jewish Livorno and close to the intellectual and anti-positivist environment of the Florentine magazine "Il Marzocco". with the new industry, an informal school of young workers was thus generated in Signa, who, although lacking regular education, growing under the experience of the sculptors and in contact with the most sublime models of universal classicism, a true concentration of the world's museums, were naturally stimulated and educated to the beauty and proportions of forms, so much so that they became refined craftsmen, plasticizers, sculptors, capable of giving life to other similar manufactures." SOURCE: Marco Moretti, Bruno Catarzi sculptor, 1903-1996, Edizioni Masso delle Fate, Signa 2005.