Vintage Neapolitan Ceramic Bust of the Blindfolded Goddess of Fortune with Ship’s Wheel, Italy, 1950s, Mid-Century Modern
A large and vivid mid-century Neapolitan ceramic bust of the blindfolded goddess of fortune, with gold lustre blindfold, ship’s wheel and anchor, turquoise drapery and gilt base band. Naples, Italy, 1950s. Excellent condition.
- Description
- Size Guide
Description
This is Neapolitan mid-century ceramics at its most characterful — bold in scale, unapologetic in colour, and executed with the kind of technical confidence that comes from a city with centuries of ceramic tradition behind it. The piece belongs to a well-defined genre of postwar Italian decorative art: the figurative bust produced for the domestic market as a symbol of luck, prosperity, and good fortune, rendered in the bright glazed palette and gleaming gold lustre that defined Italian decorative ceramics from the late 1940s through the 1960s.
The subject is La Dea Bendata — the Blindfolded Goddess — a figure unique to the Neapolitan symbolic tradition, where fortune is depicted not as a distant classical allegory but as a present, human, and entirely approachable young woman. Here she is thoroughly of her moment: brown hair swept back with a 1950s set, lips painted in deep crimson, wearing a soft turquoise robe that pools and folds around her shoulders with the comfortable informality of a house dress rather than classical drapery. The blindfold is rendered in burnished gold lustre — broad, smooth, and highly reflective — the single most arresting visual element of the piece and the one that catches the eye from across a room.
At her chest she holds two attributes rendered in the same warm gold: a ship’s wheel, symbol of navigation and the ability to steer one’s course through fortune’s seas, and an anchor, emblem of stability and hope. The combination is distinctly Neapolitan in character — Naples is, above all, a maritime city, and its symbolic language is saturated with the sea. The base is encircled by a band of gilt scrollwork on white, including a small hand-painted tally mark motif that reads as an informal maker’s or decorator’s notation.
The glaze throughout is high-gloss and in excellent condition — bright, uncracked, with the gold lustre retaining strong coverage across all decorated surfaces. This is a piece that has been well kept, and it shows.
As a room object, it occupies an interesting contemporary position: firmly vintage, carrying the full weight of its Neapolitan cultural context, but with a graphic boldness and a colour palette — that turquoise and gold against white — that reads as entirely current in a modern interior. It would be at home on a shelf in a design-conscious living room, a study, or a well-appointed office.
Dimensions: Large — please refer to listing for confirmed measurements
Material: Glazed ceramic with gold lustre decoration
Condition: Excellent. Glaze intact. Gold lustre strong throughout.
Origin: Naples, Italy, 1950s
Style: Mid-Century Modern / Neapolitan decorative ceramics
Subject: La Dea Bendata — Blindfolded Goddess of Fortune
| size | chest(in.) | waist(in.) | hips(in.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| XS | 34-36 | 27-29 | 34.5-36.5 |
| S | 36-38 | 29-31 | 36.5-38.5 |
| M | 38-40 | 31-33 | 38.5-40.5 |
| L | 40-42 | 33-36 | 40.5-43.5 |
| XL | 42-45 | 36-40 | 43.5-47.5 |
| XXL | 45-48 | 40-44 | 47.5-51.5 |
