Ceramics in Sesto Fiorentino

The Manifattura Richard-Ginori
The Manifattura Ginori, founded around 1737, is one of the oldest European porcelain factories. It has come through almost three centuries of history, constantly adjusting its production and productive systems to the radical changes which have affected both society and the economy over the years, binging about changes in ways of life and artistic trends. The continuous introduction of innovative techniques has always been coupled with constant care and attention with regard to the artistic elements expressed in the creation of refined form and decoration, inspired by canons of style, which have successively appeared on the panorama of the arts: from Neoclassicism to Empire style and from Eclecticism to Art Nouveau. The Richard-Ginori factory itself has contributed in a decisive way to the spread of new tendencies in the production of art and craft in the 1920s. At that time, Giò Ponti, then manager of the factory, designed forms and décor with such innovative ideas that they were soon being imitated. The ability to interpret the taste of an ever-growing and ever more varied public has been a constant factor in the history the Manifattura. Thanks to this capacity, the Richard-Ginori has filled important pages in the history of ceramic art, by producing works of great value in porcelain and majolica and by extending to less sophisticated objects of everyday use, the refinement of painstaking artistic research.
Richard-Ginori production data sheets archive

Other historic factories
Between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century the first firms for handcrafted ceramics were set up, often on the initiative of ex painters and modellers from the Manifattura Richard-Ginori. Some companies, whose production was discovered in the last few decades, today are considered to belong rightfully to the most important expression of Italian ceramic art in the last century: the Società Ceramica Colonnata,the Manifattura Egisto Fantechi, the Manifattura Ernesto Conti and the Ceramica Artistica Ciulli. In the 1920s and 1930s, when the ceramic sector in Sesto went through a period of expansion, the following companies were noted for the quality of their production and their innovative taste: the Manifattura S.A.C.A., the Manifattura Alma, the Barraud, Messeri & C. and the Carraresi e Lucchesi.

Contemporary ceramic production
At present there are more than fifty firms which continue the ceramic tradition in the area between Sesto Fiorentino and the adjoining towns of Calenzano and Campi Bisenzio. The best known company, and the most important one economically is still the Richard- Ginori; alongside it there are other, sometimes even quite small firms which have been able to carve themselves a niche by diversifying and by putting emphasis on the quality of production, in order to adapt to changes in the market and in tastes and lifestyles.
Sesto ceramics companies addresses and web references list

Institutes for ceramics
The Istituto Statale d’Arte for ceramics gives a decisive contribution to provide training of young ceramic workers. In this way it continues the tradition in the field of artistic training which started more than a century ago with the founding of the School of industrial Design. The museum of the Institute houses more than six hundred works, the result of training and research carried out by students and teachers from the 1930s till today. Created in 1989, the Archivio della Ceramica Sestese houses thousands of exhibits, moulds and plaster models, sketches and “pouncing” (a style of decoration), photos of the interior of the factory and photographic reproductions of objects produced by some of the oldest ceramic factories in the area.

tratto dalla pubblicazione Terre di Toscana. The towns of ceramics and terracotta, collana Senza Fretta
Edito da LCD Srl - Firenze
Traduzione di A. Mary Rasheed

Associations for the promotion of ceramics
Associazione Terre di Toscana
Association between Tuscany cities with an ancient tradition in ceramics Montelupo Fiorentino, Impruneta, Sesto Fiorentino, Borgo San Lorenzo, Montopoli in Val d’Arno, Vicopisano, Montepulciano, Trequanda, Asciano, Anghiari and Carmignano.

Associazione Italiana Città della Ceramica
The Italian Association "Towns of Ceramics" (Associazione Italiana Città della Ceramica - A.I.C.C.). it is a non-profit association that aims at creating a national network of italian towns with a ceramics activities history.