A very rare Cozzi porcelain armorial hot milk jug and cover made for the Grimani family, circa 1765-1770

Christie’s, Paris, 13 December 2006, lot 85.

M. Ansaldi and A. Craievich, Geminiano Cozzi e le sue Porcellane, exhibition catalogue, Venice 2016, p. 254.

The House of Grimani was a prominent Venetian patrician family active in the political sphere and great patrons of the arts, with an ancestry that boasted three Doges of Venice.

The sparce surviving pieces from the service include a sugar bowl; and four coffee cups and five saucers, the latter pieces, sold, Property of a Nobleman, Christie's, London, 6 July 1981, lots 29-31. With the exception of one damaged saucer (lot 31 from the Christie's sale) they were all included in the 1988 La Porcellana di Venezia nel '700, Vezzi, Hewelcke, Cozzi, at Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Venice. It is not clear which member of the Grimani family this armorial service was produced for, though Stazzi in his catalogue entry for exhibition notes that Zuanne Grimani (d. 1782) was a client of Cozzi.

Approximately forty years prior to the production of this important service, an armorial service with the Grimani arms was dispatched from Meissen to Venice. That service, circa 1725, may have been produced for Pietro Grimani (1677-1752), who was ambassador to England and Vienna, and later became the 115th Doge of Venice in 1741, serving until his death in 1752. Several pieces from this Meissen service have appeared on the auction market since the 1990s, and the teapot, formerly in the Hoffmeister Collection, is illustrated in M. Cassidy-Geiger (ed.), Fragile Diplomacy, Meissen Porcelain for European Courts, ca. 1710-63, exhibition catalogue, New Haven, Connecticut, 2007, p. 212, fig. 10-7.

A similar formed milk jug is illustrated in N. Barbantini, Le Porcellane di Venezia e delle Nove , exhibition catalogue, Venice 1936, tav. LXIV, cat. no. 194.

Related Literature

F. Stazzi, Le porcellane veneziane di Geminiano e Vincenzo Cozzi, Venice 1981, cover, p. 203, pl. VI;

La Porcellana di Venezia nel '700, Vezzi, Hewelcke, Cozzi, exhibition catalogue, Venice 1998, p. 47, cat. no. 47.