Original Fornasetti Display Plate Lina Cavalieri #21 Salvador Dali

An Original Fornasetti Display plate in perfect condition.  19.5cm diameter.

Lina Cavalieri was Piero Fornasetti’s muse, her repeated face must be one of the most recognisable across all his works.  Though her face is well known, little is generally known about her personally. Lina was orphaned at 15 and at the first opportunity, she ran away the orphanage to join a travelling theatre troupe. She landed in Paris where she found a job singing at a café much like the one where Edith Piaf was discovered. From there, her striking looks got her through the doors of the Folies Bergère where she began performing. But the Italian beauty described as “the personification of Venus on earth” and already one of the most photographed faces of her time, didn’t give up there. Determined to conquer the operatic stage, by 1906 she was performing at the The Metropolitan Opera in New York.