Stefano Ricci SR Porcelain Octagonal Ashtray — Stardust

Stefano Ricci SR Porcelain Octagonal Ashtray — Stardust

The word "stardust" carries two registers simultaneously. In the scientific register, it is literal: the heavy elements — carbon, oxygen, iron, calcium — were not produced in the Big Bang but in the nuclear fusion reactions of stellar cores, then scattered across space in supernova explosions and gradually incorporated into planets, rocks, living organisms, and the objects those organisms make. Every piece of porcelain on every table is made of material that passed through a star. In the poetic register, stardust is the residue of wonder — the particles of light and possibility that the word evokes when it is used to describe something exceptional or otherworldly.

Stefano Ricci makes use of both registers on this ashtray. The Stardust design on the porcelain surface is a decorative rendering of luminous scattered points — a field of small, concentrated lights across the 18 × 18 cm octagonal surface that catches the available light from multiple angles simultaneously. Cigar smoke, which disperses into the same atmospheric medium, rises from the cigar rest into a space that the ashtray has made more receptive to light.

The Stardust Design

The surface design creates the visual effect of scattered luminous particles on fine porcelain — a pattern that is organized without being geometric, that has rhythm without having regularity. The porcelain ground and the decorative layer work together: the fineness of the porcelain body allows the stardust effect to be rendered at the density the design requires, each point precise and deliberate.

Gold Cigar Rest

Two gold metal cigar rests accommodate two cigars at the personal scale of the 18 × 18 cm octagonal form. The gold of the rest and the luminous points of the stardust design share the same warm tonal register — hardware and decoration in agreement rather than contrast.

Now available at The Tobacconist of Greenwich.