Fancy a bit of Bitossi?

If you thought midcentury design was all sober minimalism and clean lines, the Florentine ceramics maker Bitossi will surprise you like a bolt of Tuscan sunshine in the depths of a Nordic winter. With their splashy Mediterranean colours, bold patterns and crude textures, the ceramics, which are still produced in the historic pottery centre of Montelupo Fiorentino just outside Florence, capture the youthful energy of Dolce Vita style. 

Bitossi Ceramiche is well known for the groundbreaking postmodern collections it has produced since the 1970s with Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi and Nathalie du Pasquier, among others, but it is the midcentury designs of Aldo Londi, the company’s artistic director from 1946 to ’76, that have piqued collectors’ interest. “Londi’s one of the last great 20th-century ceramic designers who’s simply not been discovered or appreciated,” says Mark Hill, author of Alla Moda: Italian Ceramics of the 1950s-70s. “We’ve found the treasure chest, and we’ve just opened the lid.”

It was under Londi’s leadership that Bitossi rose from relative obscurity to become an emblem of the newly fashionable Italian style. The brand produced a dazzling variety of ranges during Londi’s era, from the paisley-adorned Liberty to the folksy Spagnolo or Moresco. Londi’s hallmark range was Rimini, featuring primitive motifs engraved on vases, bowls, jugs and lamp bases alongside animal figurines. It has been in production since 1959 but “there’s been a bit of a gold rush” on the vintage pieces, says Alex Stone, who has dealt in midcentury Bitossi from his shop in Stockport for the past decade. 

A 1960s Rimini Yellow table lamp, £7,650 for pair, 1stdibs.com

Pendant lamp by Aldo Londi, $1,650, 1stdibs.com

Londi’s larger vases and bowls from the late ’50s and ’60s are particularly prized. In this period, production processes still left room for serendipity. The Rimini Blu glaze striates into blue, green and turquoise in early examples, while the engraved impressions were applied by hand by Bitossi artisans. This balance of modern and ancient, factory and handmade, has proved irresistible. “You can compare two of the same pieces and there will be a difference in the stamping or the grog of the clay,” says Ross Strommen, a collector from Minneapolis. “It has this one-of-a-kind feel even though it’s production pottery.” 1stdibs is currently listing a pair of 1960s Rimini Yellow table lamps for $9,500, but if you’re prepared to do some sleuthing on Etsy or eBay, you can pay well under £100 for an entry-level Rimini Blu vase.

The animals have another kind of draw. Londi’s menagerie – which includes owls, cats, birds, rams, boars, hens and horses – dates from the early 1960s to the ’70s and is hugely popular with collectors. Spanning diverse ranges and colours, the animals incorporate influences from antique traditions but also contemporary style, with each piece imbued with whimsical charm. A Rimini Blu goat recently sold on eBay for $90, while an especially sought-after piece such as a “tube cat” (a semi-abstract creature based on a cylinder and disc) can be had for around £2,400. Not all of his creatures were so covetable. After the success of his “tube cat”, Londi experimented with making a “tube dog” that resembled a teddy bear, with disconcertingly large eyes. Its rarity suggests that it was swiftly discontinued.

Bitossi Rimini Blu goat figurine, sold for $90 on eBay

A c1960s hen sculpture designed by Aldo Londi

A late-1950s goblet from the Seta range

A 1962 lamp by Ettore Sottsass for Bitossi, $1,750, 1stdibs.com

Londi’s tenure spanned almost the whole midcentury era. In the 1950s, Ettore Sottsass spent time with Londi learning how to turn pottery and creating what are now some of the most sought-after pieces on the market. Pamono currently has an “E Sottsass”-signed black and white bowl for €1,450, and 1stdibs has a deep blue and green ceramic table lamp by Sottsass for $1,750.

It has this one-of-a-kind feel even though it’s production pottery

There’s always been plenty of Londi’s work out there: the challenge for collectors is to identify it. Midcentury Italian ceramics are notoriously hard to identify due to erratic marks and patchy record-keeping. “They had so many marking systems, and they changed them at random,” says Tøve Næss Lien, a collector from Hønefoss, Norway, who has acquired more than 200 Aldo Londi pieces since she fell in love with her mother’s Bitossi wedding presents as a child. To make matters worse, the lack of copyright enabled rival potteries to copy Bitossi’s most popular ranges. As an administrator of the Facebook group Bitossi and MCM Italian Ceramics, Næss Lien spends her spare time cataloguing photos sent to her by group members. “It’s fiddly and I like puzzles,” she says. Her efforts to build an online archive of Londi’s work have not gone unrecognised. “When they don’t know something, the Bitossi company asks me.” 

Her advice is to view the piece before purchasing. You can tell whether something is real by its feel, “the weight, the glazes”, says Lien. “There’s often this doubt collectors will experience when they’ll see something, and all signs point to Bitossi,” agrees Strommen. “But it’ll be oddly light and you’ll have doubt because you want that satisfying Bitossi weight.”

Londi launched ranges constantly in a bid to stay ahead of changing tastes (“like an upmarket Zara”, says Hill). As a result, many designs are yet to be rediscovered. When we speak, Næss Lien is bidding in a Facebook auction on a piece she’s never seen before: a large manganese-brown hen, dotted with multicoloured studs. “There’s still so much we still don’t know,” says Hill. “For many collectors, the hunt is the thrill.”  

Bitossi can also be found at Bureau of Interior Affairs, London SE16, and Cupio Gallery at Alfies Antiques, London NW8