LARGE HAND-THROWN ITALIAN VASE ATTRIB. ALVINO BAGNI

A lovely Italian vase attributed to Alvino Bagni. It stands 13 ¾" tall, with a sgraffito zig-zag décor covered in a frothy glaze, in shades of yellow, green, and orange on top of what appears to be a black underglaze. It is unmarked except for the word “Italy,” but the glaze’s texture and colors are very much like a line of pottery that Bagni produced for Raymor in the 1960s. It is also hand-turned and very well-made. 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 Bito