LARGE HANDMADE ALVINO BAGNI ASHTRAY/BOWL

A beautifully handmade bowl or ashtray from the studio of master potter Alvino Bagni. The rustic detailing and incredible glaze combination make this a unique, mid-century example of his work—and a real collector's item. 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 the opening of a studio of his own in Lastr