Stefano Ricci SR Porcelain Rectangular Ashtray — Gold Fine Paisley / Gold

Stefano Ricci SR Porcelain Rectangular Ashtray — Gold Fine Paisley / Gold

Gold decoration on white porcelain has organized the finest tier of European ceramics since the early eighteenth century. At Meissen — the first European manufactory to successfully produce true hard-paste porcelain — gilt decoration was among the first techniques developed, applied by hand, fired to fix the metal to the glaze, and then burnished to the required degree of sheen. At Sèvres, Minton, Vienna, and Royal Worcester, gold on porcelain became the signature of the highest-tier production, because the pairing of two pristine materials — one perfectly white, one perfectly metallic — communicated something about the object that other combinations did not. The tradition is long and the logic is simple: gold on porcelain is a monochromatic composition in precious materials, and it does not need anything else.

Stefano Ricci places Fine Paisley in gold on fine porcelain for the rectangular ashtray — the same design used in the octagonal series, applied to a different form. The rectangular body changes the character of the piece without changing the design: where the octagonal form is geometric and self-contained, the rectangle extends horizontally, reading differently on the desk surface and positioning the cigar rest at a different angle relative to the smoker.

Rectangular Form

The OAP17R rectangular format is the personal desk ashtray at its most functional: a shape that follows the linear logic of the desk surface, that sits in line with the edge rather than anchoring a corner. The single cigar rest suits the scale — one rest, one cigar, one smoker — and positions the Gold Fine Paisley design across a surface that displays the pattern differently from the octagonal form. The paisley motif, with its curved teardrop forms and dense fine detail, adapts well to the longer rectangle, the pattern reading across the full surface of the piece.

Gold Fine Paisley

The Gold Fine Paisley design on this ashtray is the same SR exclusive pattern used across the porcelain ashtray range: the ancient boteh form rendered in fine detail in gold on white porcelain. Gold pattern, gold hardware, white porcelain ground — a monochromatic composition in which the pattern and the metal cigar rest share both color and material, the entire object organized around a single precious tone.

Gold Cigar Rest

A single gold metal cigar rest is set into the rectangular porcelain body. The gold of the rest continues the gold of the paisley pattern — hardware and decoration in complete agreement, the piece designed as a whole rather than assembled from separate material choices.

Now available at The Tobacconist of Greenwich.