Chi siamo – Collezione Magnani

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THE ORIGIN OF A PASSION

My passion for ancient or vintage perfume bottles (defined decorative scent bottles by international collectors to distinguish them from commercial ones, those that bear the marks of a particular brand), began in my now distant adolescence. Every time I went into a perfumery with my mother or my aunt, emancipated and cultured women who habitually used different kinds of cosmetics and fragrances, I was given a sample of one of the fashionable perfumes at that time, which then entered my first small collection. Over the years, there were also bottles of the first and second post-war period, which I found in small shops and flea markets. I love to collect: not to be linked with the idea of hoarding or the mania of possessing, but of discovery and research. The objects of the past become time ships that bring back traces of stories that I would like to know in all their aspects: I am fascinated by techniques, shapes, colours and materials, combining in creating a unique object deeply rooted in its time and in the culture producing it. After so many years I haven’t understood yet why, of the different collections that I started, just this has invaded my life so deeply. Perhaps because in a small bottle several things that I love melt together: art, history, miniaturization, the variety of shapes and materials, seduction, womanhood…

It was in the University years, spent in parma, that the collection began to definy itself, taking up its present structure. It all began with the discovery of a unique store selling a miscellany of antique objects and “toiletries”: Miss Carlotta seemed to live still at the time of the objects she was selling. She ran her shop more with the attitude of a collector that of a merchant.: entering that place, with the showcases in faded turquoise wood, was like entering another era. It was the purchase of a smal egg-shaped silver object, according to her coming from a noble Venetian family, which set the parameters characterizing the over one thousand scent bottles of my current collection. What I later discovered to be a German perfume box of the 17th Century bore the fundamental aspects of my collection: its being unusual, being antique or at least old, not being commercial (not made for a brand) and being less than 10 centimeters.

Otherwise, I am an omnivorous collector: my collection ranges from Roman balm containers to German figurative flacons from the Thirties (bordering on kitsch!), passing through unusual combinations of glass, silver and porcelain, through the chatelaines to wear at a ball, through the tiny pledges of love, through the many souvenirs collected along the Grand Tour. Different, small “sub-collections” of objects being the historical mirror of the moment in which they were created and reproposing styles, decorations and shapes, reminding us once again that decorative arts are not inferior to the noble arts of painting and sculpture as for cultural contents

I have deliberately excluded from my collection the wide production coming from Asia and the Islamic world: specimens of great beauty, according to an attention to the scent that has never failed over the centuries, as happened in the West. Here the perfume and its containers have been, until the contemporary age, reserved to a few privileged people who also flaunted their richness and their love for beauty or for the “marvellous” through these tiny objects, often a high expressions of art in their relating age thanks to the imagination and the technical artisan skills of their creators.I only have a few examples in my collection just for comparison, curiosity or for something that particularly attracted me.

From China, Middle East, India

I would like to explain that this passionate research has never been able to rely on a great economic availability: indeed, I don’t find my pieces participating in large auctions or buying from famous antique dealers. The rarities I own were found in flea markets in Italy or abroad (especially in the United Kingdom and in France), from private people or in small online auctions… at first following only my instinct, then, while deepening the matter, recognizing ancient flacons in the mountains of bric-à-brac or reading between the lines of totally wrong descriptions and attributions.

The natural consequence was starting looking for books, creating an archive, becoming part of an international association that brings together decorative and commercial scent bottles. I owe a lot to the IPBA (International Perfume Bottle Association) for making me get in touch with many other collectors, for having called me to write in their magazines and to speak at their conventions: this gave me a lot of strength and the courage to propose my collection at the Museo del Costume in Palazzo Mocenigo: here I could not find better reception than in the person of Dr. Chiara Squarcina, since she believes in the magic of what relates to Perfume and to Decorative Arts. From our meeting, in addition to a precious friendship, an exhibition was born; ‘Flaconi; i protaprofumi fra arte e storia” (Scent bottles: the pro-perfumes between art and history) held in this museum from October 2018 to April 2019, which was a great success with the public and the beautiful catalogue, with the design of the Art Director Lorenzo Nasi, went sold out. This exibition was followed immediately afterwards by another one at the Museo del Delta Antico in Comacchio, where I met another incredible woman, Dr. Caterina Cornelio, former director of the Archaeological Museum of Ferrara and now honorary director of this small but very rich museum. This exibition was called “Scent bottles over time. Suggestions and links with the history and territory of Comacchio”. For a long period, Covid only allowed talks and meeting online, but I managed to set up a little exibition of Souvenir scent bottles at Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice that lasted until last August. Actually I am the consultant of the Perfume Section in this Museum.

I want to stress that the assignment of scent bottles to various periods, various origins or various artisans is the result of my researches based on available literature, on comparison with pieces belonging to larger collections, on what the web provides: we can easily place with certainty a silver English flacon that bears the goldsmith’s marks, date and place of manufacture, but recognizing a piece of anonymous porcelain or a faceted glass is almost impossible if we cannot resort to an iconography that is not always clear and on assumptions that maintain a very high margin of error. I will be happy to welcome comments and opinions from those who will read this presentation with curiosity and who will feel part of this continuous research. The beauty and attraction that I recognize in these objects are endless!