Identification Guides

Ceramics made in Italy remained “old fashioned” until the 1940s. Before that, brightly colored majolica similar to that made for hundreds of years and classic pieces by the Richard Ginori factory were brought back to the United States by tourists. Italy’s amazing furniture, pottery, and glass designs in contemporary styles were not discovered until they were offered for sale in the United States in the 1940s by importers like Raymor. It was then that rough-textured vases and animal figures with bright turquoise, yellow, or red decorations were added to the modern American living room. Interest in cutting-edge Italian designs has continued.

Some twentieth-century Italian ceramics were made with an old-fashioned look. The Ginori factory made this small covered box in the style of the eighteenth century, but the mark and the words Made in Italy proclaim its recent production.