The world in a cup. Stories of porcelain

Palazzo Madama presents from January 30 to April 19, 2015 a course on the history of the cup, drawing from the rich collections of decorative art preserved in the museum.
The underlying theme of the exhibition is the cup: tea, coffee and chocolate. Subject inextricably linked to the introduction in Europe of hot drinks from the East and from the New World and the exotic material and valuable to excellence, the porcelain.
A Senate a sequence of cups, from blancs-de-chine, or the Chinese white porcelain produced in Dehua, shows the evolution of the forms and the variety of decorations in cups produced by European manufacturers in the eighteenth century: from the grounds of origin Chinese and Japanese, to those taken from the books of natural history, landscapes derived from engravings Dutch and German, to the mythological scenes and chivalric literature. At the same time, the exhibition is an opportunity to tell, for case studies, the history of porcelain, of its special production, the quality of the pasta and colors. The value socially representative porcelain emerges thanks to the exposure of some services heraldic, preserved intact for their highly symbolic value tied to the illustrious past of the family or dismembered and scattered on the antiquities market. A showcase is dedicated to the main porcelain factory operating in Piedmont in the eighteenth century, the Royal Porcelain Factory Vinovo, founded in 1776 thanks to the initiative of a Turin, Giovanni Vittorio Brodel, and a potter in Strasbourg, Pierre-Antoine Hannong, and then taken over in 1780 by the physician and chemist from Turin, Vittorio Amedeo Gioanetti. In another display, the artist Matilde Home, which has been conducting research on the subject of porcelain, Ambienta installation Existence of porcelain, which is inspired by the poems of Emily Dickinson. The artist's work combines objects and fragments of paper and porcelain on which words emerge in steel. Around an area of ​​dust Carrara marble, kaolin, a refractory material. All elements in the complex refer to the idea of ​​the factory, in a living reality and productive. In the background a base score composed by the overlapping and processing of mechanical sounds, metallic sounds repetitive recorded in critical manufacturing Industry Porcelain IPA, spreads between the tinkling ancient ceramics and contemporary.
The exposure is linked to the theme of porcelain Turin at the center of charm and splendor of porcelain Turin exhibition curated by Andreina d'Agliano and Cristina Maritano that opens simultaneously with the Foundation-Accorsi Ometto and presenting some 90 works from the collections of the Palace Madama. The two exhibitions offer overall a real city tour dedicated to the theme of porcelain.

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