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Lot Essay
Ubaldo Vitali is an internationally-renowned conservator, art historian, and silver designer. His scholarship and body of work have earned many distinctions over his 50-year career, most notably the MacArthur Fellowship – or “genius grant” – in 2011.
On the occasion of presenting this prestigious award, the MacArthur Foundation wrote:
In his original designs of commissioned presentation pieces, tureens, centerpieces, and such whimsical works as a domino set and a soda bottle made entirely of silver, Vitali explores the physical limits of his chosen material and how the interplay of light and reflections on the polished silver creates multiple layers of texture and detail. Through the beauty of his craftsmanship and rigorous approach to restoration, Vitali is playing a vital role in preserving historical collections and reinvigorating classic silversmithing with a twenty-first-century idiom.
Indeed, Mr. Vitali’s work is made entirely by hand, and the present tureen was raised by hammering in the pre-industrial fashion. The heavy gauge and tactile quality of this tureen reflects this painstaking technique. Hand-made contemporary silver objects on such a large scale are virtually unknown.
Because the patron of this tureen required a vessel for a seafood dish, risotto alla pescatore, Mr. Vitali created a shape to recall the motion of a gentle wave. Using his mastery of geometry and mathematics, Mr. Vitali intersected two hexagons, alternately lifting and depressing their angles, to evoke the rhythm of the sea. The movement of the tureen was also inspired by Tchaikovsky’s Barcarolle, or gondoliers’ song, which recalls the gentle rolling of a boat. With its exquisitely cast sealife finial, and ocean-blue hardstone handles, the boat-shaped tureen beautifully presents the bounty of the sea.
The present tureen was the first of this model to be commissioned; other examples are now in the permanent collections of The Smithsonian Institution, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Thomas H. and Diane DeMell Jacobsen PhD Foundation; another is currently on loan to The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Mr. Vitali, a fourth-generation Roman silversmith trained by his father and grandfather, studied formally at the Liceo Artistico Ripetta, the Università de Roma, and the Accademia di Belle Arti, in Rome before moving to the United States in 1967 to found his now-famous workshop.
On the occasion of presenting this prestigious award, the MacArthur Foundation wrote:
In his original designs of commissioned presentation pieces, tureens, centerpieces, and such whimsical works as a domino set and a soda bottle made entirely of silver, Vitali explores the physical limits of his chosen material and how the interplay of light and reflections on the polished silver creates multiple layers of texture and detail. Through the beauty of his craftsmanship and rigorous approach to restoration, Vitali is playing a vital role in preserving historical collections and reinvigorating classic silversmithing with a twenty-first-century idiom.
Indeed, Mr. Vitali’s work is made entirely by hand, and the present tureen was raised by hammering in the pre-industrial fashion. The heavy gauge and tactile quality of this tureen reflects this painstaking technique. Hand-made contemporary silver objects on such a large scale are virtually unknown.
Because the patron of this tureen required a vessel for a seafood dish, risotto alla pescatore, Mr. Vitali created a shape to recall the motion of a gentle wave. Using his mastery of geometry and mathematics, Mr. Vitali intersected two hexagons, alternately lifting and depressing their angles, to evoke the rhythm of the sea. The movement of the tureen was also inspired by Tchaikovsky’s Barcarolle, or gondoliers’ song, which recalls the gentle rolling of a boat. With its exquisitely cast sealife finial, and ocean-blue hardstone handles, the boat-shaped tureen beautifully presents the bounty of the sea.
The present tureen was the first of this model to be commissioned; other examples are now in the permanent collections of The Smithsonian Institution, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Thomas H. and Diane DeMell Jacobsen PhD Foundation; another is currently on loan to The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Mr. Vitali, a fourth-generation Roman silversmith trained by his father and grandfather, studied formally at the Liceo Artistico Ripetta, the Università de Roma, and the Accademia di Belle Arti, in Rome before moving to the United States in 1967 to found his now-famous workshop.