Venice's Museum of the
Eighteenth Century at Ca' Rezzonicowas inaugurated on the
25th of April 1936, in the presence of the highest officials
of the Italian State. At that time, alongside the permanent
exhibition with its paintings and furniture set out in
spacious rooms with frescoes by Giambattista Tiepolo,
Giambattista Crosato, Diziani and Guarana, the public could
also see a temporary one with china exhibits from Venice and
the Nove, organised by one of the top connoisseurs of
Venetian art, Nino Barbantini.
This exhibition was a great success with both critics and public and even today its all but unobtainable catalogue is a basic text for all those who take an interest in eighteenth century Veneto porcelain.
Now, more than sixty years later, Ca' Rezzonico is presenting another exhibition of china made in eighteenth century Venice by Vezzi, Hewelcke and Cozzi, the manufacturers active at that time. These three men, so very different in themselves for personality, culture and actual quantity of output, are as one in their passion for the mysterious "white gold" that is porcelain, whose formula was only discovered as late as 1709-10 by a German alchemist, Boettger by name, who worked at the Saxon court of Augustus the Strong.
It was Christopher Conrad Hunger, one of Boettgers's co-workers called by Vezzi in 1722, that brought these trade secrets to Venice and hence established what the documents of the time call "the most excellent House of Vezzi". That same house of Vezzi went on manufacturing until 1727 when Francesco Vezzi, chief financier of the project, not only closed the factory down but actually demolished it as a results of debts incurred by his son Giovanni. In its active years though, the Vezzi firm was first at the island of the Giudecca and subsequently at the so-called "Casin degli Spiriti" in the Venetian parish of Madonna dell'Orto. Their porcelain with its "Venezia" trademark, has a hard pure translucency that one has to go to Meissen itself to find elsewhere. And not only the impasto is exceptional, so is the imagination that has been put into the decorations, and these make of Vezzi china ware masterpieces on European scale.
Vezzi pieces are rare though, amounting some 300 in all and most of these are parts of tea services, but there are also bowls, vases, plates and coffee pots. What we have no certainty about is whether there was any figure-work done. Vezzi vessels sometimes took the silverware of the time as its model, but the rotundity of the teapots and the tall slender cups without handles are inspired by Maissen ware. Decorations include animals, scenes from mythology and crests of the families who ordered the work. There are also Chinese and oriental motifs. Some pieces are not decorated but in all likelihood these are unfinished work dating from the sudden closure of the factory.
After the closedown of Vezzi's, Venice went for thirty years without a porcelain factory of its own and the great Venetian families were constrained to turn to Meissen for a product that was a sure sign of social distinction both in its beauty and in its costliness. It was only in 1757 that a Saxon merchant, Nathaniel Friederich Hewelcke, arrived with his wife in Udine to get away from the horrors of the Seven Years' War and set up a china factory in the domains of the Serene Republic. In 1761 Hewelcke moved to Venice and worked there for two years before goig home to Dresden in 1763. For the very brevity of its existence in Venice, Hewelcke's activity takes on considerable importance, especially when we think of it as a relaunching of Venetian china-making and one very different indeed from Vezzi's. Hewelcke ware stands out for the simplicity of its decorations - some figures appear only to be sketched - and an impasto that is hard, not pure white and has a decidedly fine and opaque glaze. Here we have the earliest groups of figures to appear on the Venetian scene. At times these are polychromatic.
Hewelcke's partner and financier was one Geminiano Cozzi. Modenese in origin, Cozzi had been living in Venice for some considerable time. The year after Hewelcke's departure for Dresden, this entrepreneur in his turn set up a porcelain factory that was to see great development in its time. Cozzi's work only came to an end with the fall of the Republic itself. Cozzi brought his kaolin from the Tretto quarries near Schio in the Province of Vicenza. The pieces he produced were of the highest quality and more resistent than their forerunners ones to the heat of the beverages they had to contain. Cozzi had enough acumen to realise that markets were diversifying and accordingly he diversified his own work into two main lines, one for everyday demand such as that of the coffee houses and the middle class, and the other for outstanding pieces of highest quality for the old Venetian families. Cozzi's factory was at San Giobbe where he had nine kilns that provided work for seventy people. It had a huge turnout of goods, in some years as many as eighty thousand pieces, with their anchor trade-mark, red for the everyday output and gold for the high quality. Cozzi impasto is hard, very light grey in colour and the glaze is brillant. Products include everything from tea, coffee and chocolate services to majolica fireplace tiling: there are dinner services, vases, majolica work, knick-nacks and the much-prized figure groups. These groups can either be plain white or polychromatic and, albeit rarely, there are those with erotic overtones. There is also a wealth of objets d'art - candle and watch holders, lamps, mirrors, glove-dishes, tobacco jars, inkwells, perfume bottles, knobs for walking-sticks, bracelets and the like.
These, then, are the precious objects that coloured the days of no less than Longhi, Guardi, Goldoni and Casanova, a life that, what with one carnival and another, sojourns in country villas' conversations in coffee houses ore private gambling chambers, the ridotti, was all part of the slow but inexorable sunset of the Republic of St Mark.
Edited by Giandomenico Romanelli
This exhibition was a great success with both critics and public and even today its all but unobtainable catalogue is a basic text for all those who take an interest in eighteenth century Veneto porcelain.
Now, more than sixty years later, Ca' Rezzonico is presenting another exhibition of china made in eighteenth century Venice by Vezzi, Hewelcke and Cozzi, the manufacturers active at that time. These three men, so very different in themselves for personality, culture and actual quantity of output, are as one in their passion for the mysterious "white gold" that is porcelain, whose formula was only discovered as late as 1709-10 by a German alchemist, Boettger by name, who worked at the Saxon court of Augustus the Strong.
It was Christopher Conrad Hunger, one of Boettgers's co-workers called by Vezzi in 1722, that brought these trade secrets to Venice and hence established what the documents of the time call "the most excellent House of Vezzi". That same house of Vezzi went on manufacturing until 1727 when Francesco Vezzi, chief financier of the project, not only closed the factory down but actually demolished it as a results of debts incurred by his son Giovanni. In its active years though, the Vezzi firm was first at the island of the Giudecca and subsequently at the so-called "Casin degli Spiriti" in the Venetian parish of Madonna dell'Orto. Their porcelain with its "Venezia" trademark, has a hard pure translucency that one has to go to Meissen itself to find elsewhere. And not only the impasto is exceptional, so is the imagination that has been put into the decorations, and these make of Vezzi china ware masterpieces on European scale.
Vezzi pieces are rare though, amounting some 300 in all and most of these are parts of tea services, but there are also bowls, vases, plates and coffee pots. What we have no certainty about is whether there was any figure-work done. Vezzi vessels sometimes took the silverware of the time as its model, but the rotundity of the teapots and the tall slender cups without handles are inspired by Maissen ware. Decorations include animals, scenes from mythology and crests of the families who ordered the work. There are also Chinese and oriental motifs. Some pieces are not decorated but in all likelihood these are unfinished work dating from the sudden closure of the factory.
After the closedown of Vezzi's, Venice went for thirty years without a porcelain factory of its own and the great Venetian families were constrained to turn to Meissen for a product that was a sure sign of social distinction both in its beauty and in its costliness. It was only in 1757 that a Saxon merchant, Nathaniel Friederich Hewelcke, arrived with his wife in Udine to get away from the horrors of the Seven Years' War and set up a china factory in the domains of the Serene Republic. In 1761 Hewelcke moved to Venice and worked there for two years before goig home to Dresden in 1763. For the very brevity of its existence in Venice, Hewelcke's activity takes on considerable importance, especially when we think of it as a relaunching of Venetian china-making and one very different indeed from Vezzi's. Hewelcke ware stands out for the simplicity of its decorations - some figures appear only to be sketched - and an impasto that is hard, not pure white and has a decidedly fine and opaque glaze. Here we have the earliest groups of figures to appear on the Venetian scene. At times these are polychromatic.
Hewelcke's partner and financier was one Geminiano Cozzi. Modenese in origin, Cozzi had been living in Venice for some considerable time. The year after Hewelcke's departure for Dresden, this entrepreneur in his turn set up a porcelain factory that was to see great development in its time. Cozzi's work only came to an end with the fall of the Republic itself. Cozzi brought his kaolin from the Tretto quarries near Schio in the Province of Vicenza. The pieces he produced were of the highest quality and more resistent than their forerunners ones to the heat of the beverages they had to contain. Cozzi had enough acumen to realise that markets were diversifying and accordingly he diversified his own work into two main lines, one for everyday demand such as that of the coffee houses and the middle class, and the other for outstanding pieces of highest quality for the old Venetian families. Cozzi's factory was at San Giobbe where he had nine kilns that provided work for seventy people. It had a huge turnout of goods, in some years as many as eighty thousand pieces, with their anchor trade-mark, red for the everyday output and gold for the high quality. Cozzi impasto is hard, very light grey in colour and the glaze is brillant. Products include everything from tea, coffee and chocolate services to majolica fireplace tiling: there are dinner services, vases, majolica work, knick-nacks and the much-prized figure groups. These groups can either be plain white or polychromatic and, albeit rarely, there are those with erotic overtones. There is also a wealth of objets d'art - candle and watch holders, lamps, mirrors, glove-dishes, tobacco jars, inkwells, perfume bottles, knobs for walking-sticks, bracelets and the like.
These, then, are the precious objects that coloured the days of no less than Longhi, Guardi, Goldoni and Casanova, a life that, what with one carnival and another, sojourns in country villas' conversations in coffee houses ore private gambling chambers, the ridotti, was all part of the slow but inexorable sunset of the Republic of St Mark.
Edited by Giandomenico Romanelli
