Este and the rest

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Anita Nair: collection has grown, but I was to never know the fullness of desire until in Padua in Italy, I walked into a friend’s home.

Nothing had prepared me for the understated charm of Este. Intricately patterned with delicate and light rococo swirls, the beauty of Este lay in that it was white on white. My heart gleamed again and again.

The tradition of pottery in Este is ancient. The style itself as seen in some of the typical Este ware seems drawn from the richly embellished bronze urns the nobility of Paleoveneti [Celtic people from the 8th century BC], used to preserve the ashes of their interred family. However what could have led to the pottery making itself lay in the fact that Este is very rich in a very special kind of clay called Kaolin which is perfect for fine bone china.While the typical Este pottery is either all white, or blue and white or white with a special flower and ribbon pattern in dark green, yellow, light brown and dark red, since the 18th Century, a special white pottery that incorporated several Neo Classical art elements came into fashion and it was this I was smitten by.

One of the most ancient and historical china and pottery manufactures in Este was called ‘capauni’. Their mark was “Capuani. Vecchia Este” (Old Este) and bore a five pointed crown. Set up at the end of the 17th century, the ownership had been controlled by the same family to the 1960s. Since then disease and death had worked its way into the family stilling the production. How could it be?

I grieved...

On a whim, my friend Francesca and I decided to go exploring.

“Don’t be too disappointed,” she warned. “I don’t know if the Capuani production still continues...”

Perhaps on every piece of Este white pottery, an invisible hand writes the name of the person whom it shall go to. For we did find the mark of Capuani. The new owner Dall’Angelo had bought the moulds from the wife of the last descendant of the family and continued with the ancient production in an industrial shed.