LARGE ALVINO BAGNI DOUBLE-GOURD VASE FOR RAYMOR

A large, orange and green, double-gourd bouquet vase designed by the great Alvino Bagni for American importer Raymor. The blending glazes form a flowing, mottled surface—accented by orange sgraffito dots and indentations. Original Raymor tag attached underneath. ALVINO BAGNI (1919–2009) was born in 1919 in the quiet Tuscan hamlet of Lastra a Signa in the environs of Florence. His boyhood and adolescence were spent without his father, who, as a communist, had been exiled under Italian fascism. The young Bagni took an early interest in pottery, a regionally important industry. He studied the basics of drawing and clay modeling under the tutelage of local sculptor Torello Santini (1875–1946) and, with his referral, took a job in the workshop of Arnaldo Pugi’s ceramics factory in nearby Ponte a Signa. Bagni had a brief stint at Bitossi Ceramiche in nearby Montelupo, where famed ceramist Aldo Londi (1911–2003) took him under his wing. After the Second World War, Pugi helped Bagni finance t