Le coppe della filosofia

Two important French manufacturers, Sèvres Cité de la Céramique and Baccarat, have made available their know-how and history to produce a collection of three forms of goblets at the same time – one made of hard-paste porcelain, the other cut glass.
The name of the collection, Le Coppe della Filosofia [The Goblets of Philosophy], is a reference to the voids that these closed forms contain: metaphorical spaces, of thought, of spiritual meditation. Michele De Lucchi writes: “It seemed to me to be a beautiful idea to give the goblets the names of Philosophies, because goblets have always been combined with the wisdom of man”. La Coppa dell’Etica is flat and wide, La Coppa della Mistica is tall and refined, while La Coppa dell’Estetica is the original basis and synthesis of the project.
The porcelains and glasses are differentiated above all by their interiors. While the goblets made by Sèvres are orderly and essential, in those by Baccarat, concentric cylinders follow each other, entering the form deeply and creating a void there. This workmanship becomes an essential part of the effect of the exteriors: a linear blue-coloured surface in the goblets by Sèvres; transparent, elaborate and curvilinear forms in the goblets by Baccarat.