San Francisco Ceramic Circle
Friday, November 19th, 1999 Meeting
Innovations during the Twilight of Florence:
Eighteenth-Century Sculpture in Doccia Porcelain
Alan Phipps Darr, Walter B. Ford II Family
Curator of European Sculpture and Decorative
Arts, The Detroit Institute of Arts
The November meeting of the San Francisco Ceramic Circle will
be held on Friday, 19th November in the Florence Gould Theater
at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, San Francisco.
Entrance is from the West terrace from 7.30pm. The lecture will
start at 8.00pm.
Our speaker will be Alan Phipps Darr, Walter B. Ford II Family
Curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Detroit
Institute of Arts. His lecture is entitled "Innovations during
the Twilight of Florence: Eighteenth-Century Sculpture in Doccia
Porcelain".
The mini-exhibit will be of 18th century figures and Italian
porclain. Set up is at 7.30pm
About the lecture:
The Doccia factory , founded in 1735 by the Marchese Carlo
Ginori, was among the earliest of the European porcelain factories
and was preceded in Italy only by the short lived factory of the
Medicis in Florence in the 16th century and by the even briefer
effort of Francesco Vezzi in Venice during the 1720's. The Doccia
factory is one of the few 18th century pioneering European porcelain
factories that has continued production to the present day manufacturing
fine porcelains under the Richard Ginori label.
During the earliest period of the factory porcelain sculptures
of artistic merit and remarkably large size for the period were
made using a hybrid paste. With more than 30 examples, the Detroit
Institute of Arts has the largest collection of early Doccia porcelain
in the United States. This talk will discuss the Doccia factory
and its products and their position in the context of 18th century
Italian sculpture.
About the lecturer:
Alan Phipps Darr is the Walter B. Ford II Family Curator of
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Detroit Institute
of Arts and has responsibilty for the Museums renowned collection
of medieval through early 20th century European arms and armour,
ceramics, furniture , glass, ivory, silver, metalwork , sculpture
and textiles.
He has been responsible for many of the installations at the
Museum and for special exhibitions, has published numerous articles
in journals and exhibition catalogs, has lectured widely on all
aspects of European Art and Decorative Arts.
He is currently working on a catalog of Italian sculpture
in the permanent collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts and
a book on Pietro Torrigiani and Italian Sculpture in Renaissance
England.
Future S.F.C.C. programs:
The San Francisco Ceramic Circle does not meet in December.
Our program for the year 2000 will be added to this site during
December.