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Bitossi Rimini blu figurines – straight from 1953

pam kueber - Updated: February 6, 2019

Retro Renovation stopped publishing in 2021; these stories remain for historical information, as potential continued resources, and for archival purposes.

Bitossi Rimini blu ceramic figurines were designed by Aldo Londi, and have been in production since 1953. I recently began admiring these, vintage, on ebay. And then, I discovered that you can still get them, new. These Bitossi blue ceramic figurines are absolutely gorgeous…. their primitive sculpted shape is a quintessentially modern look. There is even a Trojan horse (Bitossi = Italian), picking right up on our ongoing discussion about primitive-modern horse motifs. Finally, the glaze: Oh my! That Rimini blu seems to capture and condense the sky… I tend to believe a dash of this color would look fantastic in virtually any interior. According to Unica Home, which sells these sculpted pieces in the U.S. today, Aldo Londi was the longtime art director of Bitossi. Back in the day, I believe the ceramic figurines were marketed by Raymor, which is how I stumbled upon them. There are other vintage colors, for example, the green is also gorgeous and I love their “rainbow” glazes. But Rimini Blu was the signature color, so that appears to be what’s still mostly in production today.

Link: Bitossi Rimini blu figurines from UnicaHome


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  3. BungalowBILL says

    I love that color too. It was very popular in the early 60’s . Another name it was marketed under was Egyptian Blue, maybe due to the popularity of Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra from 1963.

    I believe the new pieces of Bitossi have an impressed shield mark. It’s important to distinguish the old from the new, since the new sometimes will cost more than the older collectible pieces.