Large vase in the style of 18th-century Savona majolica

Late 19th c. Majolica and under-glaze painting

Savona was one of the leading centres of majolica production in Italy in the 17th–18th centuries. Typical examples of the tin-glazed pottery made in Savona are earthenware with a blue-and-white decoration, characterised by a brisk manner of painting which leaves the brush strokes visible. Several painters who worked for the majolica potteries are known by name: Giovanni Agostino Ratti (1699–1775) was one of the best-known among them. Ratti, who studied painting in Rome, worked in his home-town Savona for a short period at the beginning of the 1720s.
The sign of the Savona majolica manufacturer, below it the inscription Agostino Ratti Fece in Savona and the year 1722 are clearly visible on the necks of the baroque vases at the Kadriorg Art Museum. Compared to 18th-century Savona pottery, the vases seem unusually large, and the signatures, which were normally hidden on the bottom or at the back of the earthenware, are conspicuously visible.

The vases are actually imitations of Savona earthenware, produced in Italy in the second half of the 19th century and are examples of historicism in applied arts. The signs on the vases serve the dishonest purpose of presenting them as authentic 18th-century Savona earthenware decorated by the famous majolica painter.