Old Ceramic Bottles Liquor/Wine?

Hi,

I came across this pair of old wine/liquor bottles that appear to be ceramic, with amazing high reliefs/carvings on them. I don't even know the proper technique to describe them so including a bunch of photos. I apologize for duplicates, am posting from my phone.

Both have detailed country side scenes, my guess is Italian?

One shows a lot of women in dresses with baskets going to a river full of fish, they put their baskets in the river and walk away with the basket on their head (maybe it's the same woman). There is also a horse next to a tree.

The other shows a building and a water well with a horse tied to a tree. Some women carry water vessels around.

They are both signed on the bottom, which I cant make out, with a roman numeral II.

They both have corks in the top. One has a label, which appears very old paper. Some print remains but only the word, "daso" still visible.

They are about 9" tall and 3.25" wide at the base.

Anybody who can provide additional information would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Rob

 

You bottle is signed "Santi." An internet search will bring up other ceramic items with the same signature. Here is one that has a relief similar to yours.

https://www.catawiki.com/l/14082815-art-deco-santi-ceramic-religious-vase-italy-ca-1930

Debora

 

My guess would be a wine bottle.

 

Let's research Luigi Santi. Appears to have been a well respected Italian potter.

Debora

 

Here's a short biography that I've run through Google Translate for you.

"Born in Faenza in 1907, he graduated from the Royal School of Faenza, a pupil of Anselmo Bucci and Domenico Rambelli, and completed his training by working at some factories in central Italy including the "Minghetti Ceramic Manufactory" in Bologna.
Married Itala Minghetti, daughter of Gennaro owner of the manufacture, Luigi Santi remained with the company until 1930.
In 1952, with the help of a financing partner, he founded the "Santi & Biancoli" manufactory, in Miramare, near Rimini, where he produced a commercial type production, in competition with the nearby San Marino manufactory.
After a few years he remains only in the management of the manufacture, which takes the name of "Santi Ceramiche", and soon starts a new office in Cattolica, flanking commercial production with the creation of artistic ceramics made in unique pieces and presented at various Exhibitions and Competitions."

Debora

 

I found you a handled bottle on Italy's eBay but it's simply described as a bottiglia or bottle. The relief depicts San Marino. Yours are much more interesting pieces.

https://www.ebay.it/itm/BOTTIGLIA-C...175286?hash=item4693d8e2b6:g:G6wAAOSwQcJZ-ODd

Debora

 

Here's a longer biography which I've also run through Google Translate. The source is below.

Luigi Santi (1907-1981) Ceramist and draftsman

The laboratory (from 1967 in via Ferrara) gave work in the moments of maximum productivity to about 20 workers,
turners and decorators, the former coming mainly from the area of Civita Castellana and Gualdo Tadino and the latter from Faenza

Sensitive interpreter of genre scenes where the people of the street, the circus are the protagonists,
wives, pensioners, fishermen, tavern drinkers, acrobats, hunters

Despite a life spent in Romagna, between Rimini and Faenza, the Lazio accent is still strong, innate; as are the deep ties with that land of Tuscia, in the Viterbo area, where Gian Franco Santi, born in 1936, was born and grew up until the teenage years. He, the artist and expert ceramologist, tells us about the human and artistic adventure of his father Luigi Santi, to whom he owes his passion and inclination for the art of ceramics.

Faentino of origin and temperament, as underlined by his son, Luigi, born in 1907 was "integral ceramist by choice of life, ability and creativity". Luigi Santi had trained in Faenza at the historic Ballardini institute where he had been a disciple of the sculptor Domenico Rambelli.

Then in 1927 he moved to Civita Castellana to learn more about the technique in the local factories specializing in ceramics. The entire area was already famous for its flourishing ceramic production (famous in antiquity that of the fourth century BC imitated by Attic imitation, but also in the modern age for decorations such as the 'ticchiolo' motif and the so-called 'a' technique. stoffa ') and enjoyed an unsurpassed wealth of clays linked to the volcanic activity of the area (such as leucitic lavas and red tuff).

In 1931 Santi married Elvira Ciampicacigli with whom he had three children. In Civita after 1947, in partnership with Pellegrini, he created his own laboratory that employed a dozen employees.
The return to Romagna becomes possible with the project of a ceramic plant in Miramare helped and pushed by Goffredo Biancoli, then his partner, and ceramic consultant.
In 1952 the company took the name of Ceramica Riminese. In Miramare in via Lisbona (crossroad of Viale Oliveti) where it is located, specialized workers from the various ceramic centers, especially in central Italy, come together, it soon becomes an aggregative center of cultural and technical exchange, a reference point for citizens and tourists attracted by the artistic and functional value of ceramics.

However after years of work and sacrifices in 1961 Luigi Santi closed the Miramare laboratory, amid many compromises and difficulties. From that date he moved his business to Cattolica, first in via Nazionale Adriatica in large premises (today corresponding to the large toy store that overlooks the same street) then starting from the end of 1967 in via Ferrara.

The Cattolica laboratory employed around 20 workers, turners and decorators, in the moments of maximum productivity, the former coming mainly from the area of Civita Castellana and Gualdo Tadino and the latter from Faenza. The production focused on artistic ceramics which ensured the maintenance of two retail stores with particular reference to tourist users who paid attention to art in summer, for investment and for souvenirs: one in Piazza 1 ° Maggio and a second in Gabicce Mare, both managed for a long time (1967-2000) by his daughter Gabriella Santi who in the Rimini years had dealt with the logistical aspects and shipments throughout Italy of the Santi ceramics.

Creative, jovial, inclined to joke in his external relations as perhaps introverted in the most reflective moments, Luigi Santi represents a talented and instinctive artist in the trait and in the sign, and above all in the inventiveness and skill with which he treated the ceramic. Completely out of the diatribes and relationships that raged in Romagna in the 50s and 60s on art themes, between factions of figurative and abstract artists, Santi embodies the role of the artist-craftsman without direct comparisons, free in his workshop .

The opportunity offered today through the availability of the heirs and collectors to be able to exhibit some of the ceramic works and a part of the copious and unpublished corpus of original designs certainly represents an important moment of rediscovery and enhancement of this artist.

The entire path of Santi's activity is crossed by spontaneous energy and irony, always nourishing his natural manual skills with a curious and bizarre fantasy.

Fast penciled, pencil drawings, sometimes sprinkled with charcoal or watercolors: the sign of Santi who has an irreverent and amused figurative correspondent has a very personal figure, is loose, built on a technique capable of small virtuosity. Since the late 1940s he has shown himself to be a sensitive interpreter of 'genre scenes', specks and figures that characterize his whimsical production: he is the street people, the circus, the wives, the pensioners, the fishermen, the drinkers of tavern, the acrobats, the hunters who enter lively and burlesque into a repertoire that can also be translated for the ceramic decorations, a 'theater' of life devoid of rhetoric but nourished by irony and affection. And some melancholy."

https://www.cattolica.info/tradizioni/arti-e-mestieri/santi-vita-per-la-ceramica-darte/

Debora

 

I've seen the scenes on his relief works described as "religious" or "pastoral" but I think a better description would simply be "genre scenes" as we know from the above that he was interested in ordinary people going about their everyday lives.

Debora

 

Debora,

You are a godsend! Thank you so much. I'm taken back by your kindness.

It's crazy, I am sure I searched Santi but didnt find anything. Maybe I didnt know how to describe the bottles well enough.

But all the information you just shared is truly cherished. I love the bottles and now the mystery is solved.

Can I tip you through PayPal or something? Is that allowed here? I'm new and dont want to break any rules!

A big hug,

Rob

 

We all donate our time, knowledge and research skills here. I was delighted to be of assistance. Nothing more required.

Debora

 

High praise indeed from the real research maven!

Debora

 

Well many thanks again! Such an invaluable resource here with such stellar researchers.

Another big hug

Rob

 

Hi All,
Luigi Santi ceramist was my grandfather.
It is always a great pleasure to find some ceramic pieces from him.
All my family worked with ceramic. and all text posted from Debora was written from my father Franco Santi. Also ceramist
I can give you all info you need.
please write me.

Email Deleted by Moderator
Massimo