A Doccia porcelain armorial large circular dish from the Marana Isola service, circa 1750

Marchesi Francesco and Laura Marana, Genoa;

Contessa Luisa Guicciardini Strozzi (1859-1929);

Thence by descent until sold, ‘Property from an Italian noble family’, Sotheby’s, London, 24 February 2015, lot 243.

This celebrated service was commissioned by the Marchesa Laura Isola Marana, bearing her arms and those of her husband, the Marquis Francesco Marana of Genoa. Its decoration, sumptuous and varied in its painterly style, shows the clear influence of baroque Viennese porcelains of Du Paquier's manufactory.

The service was delivered in stages, and a first part, at least, must have been delivered by 30 October 1750, when the Marchesa mentioned it in a letter, after writing to the Count that she had not yet received it in letters of the 15th August and 22nd August. Surviving correspondence between the Marchese and her friend Ginori is extensive. In one letter dated 28 August 1750 she wrote to Ginori "I am delighted and surprised by the originality of your porcelain...", "...I hear that towards the beginning of the month you are returning to Livorno... I beg you to send me as soon as possible the lovely dessert service that you promised me..." (quoted from d'Agliano, 2005, p. 291.) Its delivery followed an earlier simpler armorial service decorated "a stampa", with blue flowers on a white ground, delivered in 1749.

Today, pieces from this highly experimental service are scattered through private and public collections worldwide, notable surviving pieces in museum collections include:

a coffee pot in the Museo Duca di Martina, Naples (inv. no. 1987);

a tureen in the Museo di Villa Cagnola Gazzada (inv. no. 326);

two large dishes in the Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, Vienna (inv. nos. Ke6135 and Ke7905);

a dish in the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Cologne (inv. no. E3711);

a dish in the Museum fur Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, (inv. no. 6327);

and three dishes in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (inv. nos.25605,06, 07).

Related Literature

A. d'Agliano in J. Kräftner (ed.), Baroque luxury porcelain: the manufactories of Du Paquier in Vienna and of Carlo Ginori in Florence, exhibition catalogue, Munich 2005, pp. 290-92, cat. nos. 116-17;

A. Biancalana, Porcellane Ginori a Doccia, La Stanza delle Meraviglie di Carlo Colli, Milan, 2023, pp. 394-99, cat. no. 88;

G. de Girolamo, et al., Arte e Porcellane Europee nella Collezione Vimercati Sanseverino, Livorno 2025, pp. 314-19, cat. no. 77.