Madonna Adoring The Infant Jesus - Cantagalli Pottery ( XIX Century )

Cantagalli-manufactured ceramics measuring 125 x 67 cm depicting a sweet Madonna adoring the Child Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Ulisse Cantagalli started an artistic production of ceramics, adding it to his kiln along the Via Senese in Florence that produced raw material for construction.

Ulisse, who was born in Florence on 18 June 1839 to Giuseppe and Flavia Franceschi, ran the company from 1872 and in 1878 hired an unemployed painter to become a skilled majolica decorator. By 1885, the company was already a highly regarded manufacture of artistic majolica, and the former painter, now director of works, employed around 30 painters and decorators (Corona) in addition to his two sons. Ulysses died on 29 March 1901 in Cairo, where he had travelled for health reasons.

At the Milan Industrial Exhibition of 1881, the Manifattura Figli [Ulisse and Romeo] di Giuseppe Cantagalli of Florence, which proved to be one of the leading manufacturers of ornamental majolica, was awarded a gold medal ‘for the merit of the many good style reproductions, as well as for the important attempt to solve the problem of producing objects with an artistic character at prices so low as to make them accessible to the generality of buyers’. Other honours followed at exhibitions in Antwerp, Paris and London.

The production approach, based on the imitation of ancient styles (Persian, Hispano-Moorish, Italian Renaissance and Della Robbia garments) and on the modest prices that facilitated sales and spread the taste for majolica, brought the company great success, the conquest of the Italian market, and the opportunity to make a name for itself in many parts of Europe, America and the Orient.

In order to achieve a good stylistic and qualitative level, Ulisse had personally studied 15th- and 16th-century specimens also by travelling abroad. He had also studied the ancient methods of preparing soils, coatings, colours and firing, and had patiently trained the workers: modellers and painters had been sent to study the works preserved in the museums of Arezzo, Pesaro, Loreto and other cities, as well as Florence. He had also maintained constant contact with foreign scholars, such as the English C.D.E. Fortnum and H. Wallis, and the Germans J. Lessing and W. von Bode.