Giovanni Ronzan Ceramic Hound

Hello everyone!
I love anything to do with Italian ceramics or porcelain. I recently acquired this ceramic hound produced by Giovanni Ronzan in Italy. His works are just phenomenal. I have a few of his pieces in my collection. This hound is perfectly depicted and well cast. This one measures 15" long and 10" tall. It is marked and signed as you'll see in pic #4.

Giovanni Ronzan, founder of the business, was born on 24.9.1906, in a small town in the Vicenza area, Le Nove di Bassano del Grappa, cradle of Venetian ceramics and, following the death of his father during the First World War, he became very soon head of the family of two more brothers and three sisters.

He began working at a very young age at the Bonato ceramics company in Bassano and, after having attended professional sculpture courses at the Technical Institute of Nove, he went to Milan, where he began working as a ceramist at the Fabris porcelain factory.

At the end of the 1920s, Mrs. Elena Konig in Scavini, founder of the Lenci company, looked for expert ceramists to boost her famous cloth doll factory and tackle the production of ceramic objects; Giovanni was contacted and moved to Turin where he was hired on 31.1.1930 with the qualification of painter. Giovanni Ronzan and his brothers founded the Ronzan factory circa 1940s shortly after he had left his job as chief painter and ceramic modeler at the Lenci factory.

Thanks very much for stopping by for a look!!

Scott