Faenza. Vincenzo Ossani. Ceramic With Metallic Lustre. Female Nude. Circa 1930

Faenza. Vincenzo Ossani. Ceramic with metallic lustre. Female nude. Circa 1930

Ceramic with metallic lustre.
Condition: excellent, with no breaks or restorations.
Faenza, 1930s.
Dimensions: H. 33 cm; W. 32 cm.

Ceramic sculpture with metallic lustre depicting a female nude, signed “Vin. Ossani, Faenza”, with the signature located inside the hollow of the base. The work belongs to the figurative production of Faenza between the two World Wars and relates to a mature phase in Vincenzo Ossani’s artistic language.

Born and trained in Faenza, Vincenzo Ossani (1906–1960) was a ceramicist and sculptor active from the 1920s through the post-war period. After his initial formation in the Faenza milieu, he worked during the 1920s with external manufactories, notably the Ceramiche Artistiche F.lli Fanciullacci in Montelupo Fiorentino. He later returned to Romagna, where he took an active role in local artistic life and, in 1945, became one of the founding members of the Cooperativa Artigiana Ceramisti Faentini (CACF), alongside key figures of twentieth-century Faenza ceramics. The presence of the Ossani family in the local ceramic context is documented from the 1930s, in connection with the historic Cà Pirota workshop.

The sculpture is firmly rooted in the aesthetic climate of the 1930s. It is characterised by a pronounced stylisation and an idealised female type with elongated proportions, while the hairstyle recalls the visual imagery of the period. The metallic lustre, applied according to the Faenza tradition, displays coppery and brown reflections with iridescent variations resulting from the firing process. The glossy glaze enhances the decorative quality of the sculpture, conceived to interact with light and with the interiors of its time.