How Laboratorio Paravicini Creates Its Hand-Painted Ceramic Plates
- Laboratorio Paravicini in Milan is a renowned tableware brand known for its intricate hand-painted designs and dishwasher-safe ceramics.
Tablescaping in Milan is serious business. In this design-oriented city, every well-coiffed sciura worth her salt relies on an arsenal of the finest flatware, crystal, linens, and more. And in certain spheres, you'd be hard-pressed to find any easily identifiable china pattern, for this is a milieu where, refreshingly, individuality is still prized. Among the most coveted makers? Laboratorio Paravicini .
Launched in the early 1990s by Costanza Paravicini in a historic 18th-century compound where she and her family still reside, the enterprise initially was a hobby for the skilled artist, who couldn't find any plates on the market that truly spoke to her. Word of her wares quickly spread around Milan, and a business was born that now includes Paravicini's two daughters—Benedetta and Margherita Medici. What really distinguishes Laboratorio Paravicini, apart from the intricate hand-painted designs that run the gamut from Art Deco to avant-garde, is perhaps the ultimate luxury: dishwasher-safe ceramics.
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"Tableware has overtaken fashion," says Benedetta, noting the sheer number of clothing designers who have expanded into the space.
Luxury e-commerce sites such as Moda Operandi and Abask were among the first to embrace the firm, offering ready-to-order options for many of Paravicini's best-selling styles, such as the Serpi and the Bloom ranges ($705 and $490, respectively, for six dinner plates). A single bespoke dish can reach $400 for the most elaborate motifs, such as a dense border of flora and fauna particular to one's country estate. The choices are limited only by your and Paravicini's imaginations. Plan accordingly: Such designs can require about one month's work, so you easily could be looking at a year for a complete set.
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1. Mold of Choice
The ceramic dishes that serve as the canvas are made by an artisan in the countryside outside Milan using Paravicini's proprietary molds. The choice of ceramic over porcelain was intentional, as it offers more warmth of hue.
2. Setting Boundaries
While the designs themselves are not stenciled on prior to painting, pencils are used minimally in order to give the painter a visual boundary and to ensure that any center details such as bespoke monograms or family crests are placed exactly where they should be.
3. Artist Per Order
Though each plate is inherently unique, given the handmade nature of the products, Paravicini achieves maximum consistency by assigning a single artist to not only an individual plate but also an entire order.
4. Watercoloring
High-fire, watercolor-like pigments allow for increased depth and layering, thanks to their translucence.
5. Hand Decorating
All decorative work is done by hand directly on the raw plate, and any shortcuts such as heat transfers are out of the question. Depending on the complexity of the design, painting may be done in multiple stages before being left to dry.
6. Kiln Transport
Owing to Milan's safety regulations, the firing cannot be done on-site. Dishes are packed up and transported to a kiln outside the city limits—one of the few remaining from the once-booming ceramics industry in Lodi.
7. Dipped in Resin
Prior to being loaded into the kiln, the plates are dipped into a glaze resin. The result is a shiny, glass-like surface. If a gold or platinum rim is desired, it's now painted on in a thin black line that a second firing renders metallic. Pieces that feature this detail are the only items of Paravicini's that are not dishwasher-safe.
8. Polished and Packaged
The newly fired dishes are now ready to be polished before being brought back to the Milan HQ and carefully packaged in Paravicini's signature sunny yellow boxes and dispatched to tastemakers around the globe. The atelier accepts orders online, but the showroom is so enticing, it's worth the trip.
