Scent bottle of hard-paste porcelain, heart-shaped, Le Nove porcelain factory, Nove, ca. 1800.

Scent bottle of hard-paste porcelain, heart-shaped, painted with enamels and gilded. Short cylindrical neck and two double rings on the shoulder for suspension. At the widest part are two applied shell forms, partly gilt. Through the heart runs an arrow, of which the tip only is visible. On one side is painted the figures of a girl sitting beside urns of flowers with a bird on her shoulder. On the other side is Cupid flying through clouds and holding a dart.

Given by Mr H.E. Backer

Italian porcelain – after Meissen
The first of the 18th century factories was founded in Venice in 1720 by Francesco Vezzi. He was a goldsmith who turned to financing and mercantile affairs.
In 1719 he was in Vienna. Du Paquier had set up in Vienna in 1718.
Francesco set his son, Giovanni, up in a porcelain factory in Venice.
Christoph Conrad Hunger left his employment with Du Paquier and became a partner in Venice with Vezzi. Hunger was able to supply to Vienna and then to Venice the same deposits of kaolin (high firing white clay) that Meissen was using.
Vezzi’s factory lasted only until 1727. Giovanni ran into financial difficulties and the Saxon clay was hard to obtain. Hunger had left the Vezzi factory in 1724 and returned to Meissen in 1727 where he reported Vezzi’s use of the clay. Meissen cut off the supply.

The Vezzi factory was demolished. In the middle of the 18th century, three new factories were set up in Venice.

(1762) Pasquale Antonibon started making porcelain at his father’s maiolica factory in La Nove, just NW of Venice (estd.1728).
(1762) Geminiano Cozzi began porcelain experiments in his new factory in Venice.
Antonibon became ill. Some of his workers went to Cozzi. Antonibon back in 1765 and carried on at Le Nove until death in 1773.
Don’t believe that any porcelain was made at Le Nove between 1773 and 1781.
At the beginning, Cozzi and Le Nove used the same kaolin which came from deposits in Vicenza. They are similar in paint colours and styles and both bodies are greyish. But Cozzi pieces tend to be surface textured and the glaze shinier.

Le Nove mark: star formed of three intersecting lines, in iron red or blue enamel.

C.153-1956