Beautiful and rare Gualdo Tadino vase from the early 1900s. Very beautiful pictorially and of high quality in ruby-colored luster. Signed in blue at the bottom of the base A. Santarelli.
The vase measures: 39 cm in height, 16 cm mouth diameter, 30 cm max diameter.
We attach a historical certificate of authenticity to the sale.
Life of Alfredo Santarelli:
Alfredo Santarelli was born in Gualdo Tadino in 1874 and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia, graduating in 1897. He approached ceramics by working at the "Rubboli" furnace in Pesaro, a student of the ceramist Giuseppe Discepoli, and fascinated by the art of majolica, in 1899 he began the first experiments to reproduce the gold and ruby reflections of the ancient ceramics of his land. His first works were awarded for the metallic reflections applied to majolica in the exhibitions of Perugia and Foligno. At the end of the nineteenth century he collaborated with the Gualdese manufacture "Fedi Ceramiche" Encouraged by the results obtained, Santarelli in 1900 opened, where in the seventeenth century stood the furnaces of Francesco Biagioli known as the Monina, a laboratory without a furnace where, in addition to training the new workers, he made ceramics that he baked in an external oven. In 1901 he married Eleonora Sergiacomi, daughter of the ceramist Salvatore and expert muffle maker. Between 1906 and 1908 he taught at the School of Drawing of Gualdo and collaborated with many of the furnaces in the area. In 1907 and 1912 he obtained a Cup of Honor and a Grand Prize in Perugia and in 1908 he was a gold medal in Gubbio. In 1919 he was invited to Deruta to direct the local School of Drawing applied to ceramics and opened a ceramic factory there which he ran for two years. In 1921 he returned to Gualdo and in a short time, helped by his son Vittorugo, made his factory, the "Santarelli Ceramiche", large, equipped and modern and, inside, opened a free school of applied drawing. In 1925 he was one of the promoters of the "C.I.M.A." to which he participated with his manufacture until 1933. In 1940 he left the management of the manufacture to his son Vittorugo, however continuing his activity as a ceramist. In the forties, in addition to making metal luster ceramics of ancient tradition, he started a modern style production in which the use of gold is associated with opaque enamels and rough surfaces that seem to be influenced by contemporary Deruta ceramics. In the fifties the manufacture was based in via Monina 11 in Gualdo Tadino. In 1953 the manufacture was taken over by the ceramist Teobaldo Pimpinelli and Alfredo Santarelli, with the help of his son and Ezio Rondelli, founded a company called "Ceramiche di Gualdo e Deruta Prof. A. Santarelli" which remained active until 1955. Alfredo Santarelli died in Gualdo Tadino in 1957.
