A group of Doccia porcelain topographical service wares, circa 1810-20

The circular pierced basket, Il Ponte casa d’aste, Milan, 29 May 2012, lot 274;

The oval pierced basket, Replica Shoes 's, New York, 18 November 2011, lot 5.

This type of landscape decoration, predominantly featuring Italian views, often taken from contemporary engravings, was inspired by the success of topographical services made at the Naples Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea, which had been fashionable since their introduction in the 1780s. In 1808, the painter Ferdinando Ammannati joined Doccia from the Naples manufactory and this may have helped drive production of these types of wares in the early 19th century at Doccia. Views of Rome, Naples and Florence, and their environs, were depicted, and more rarely, Livorno and Lucca.

The blue-ground rose and landscape panel border on the oval dish in the present lot corresponds with that of a topographical plate illustrated by A. d'Agliano et al., Lucca e le porcellane della Manifattura Ginori, Commissioni patrizie e ordinativi di corte, exhibition catalogue, Lucca, 2001, p. 173, no. 115. For a leaf-shaped dish of the same type as that in the present lot and further discussion of the production of topographical services at Doccia see A. Biancalana, Porcellane e Maioliche a Doccia, La Fabbrica dei Marchese Ginori, I Primi Cento Anni, Florence, 2009, pp. 166-167.