POOL SERVICE
17.06.2024 EMPORIO SIRENUSE
Back in 2019, for the Artists at Le Sirenuse programme, Cornish artist Lucy Stein created a captivating series of pen and ink drawings that line the stairway leading down from Aldo’s to the La Sponda restaurant. Inspired by the mermaid theme that is embedded in the hotel’s name, Stein imagined a female-first world of playful marine antics, teasing sirens and seafood surrealism.
Living and working on the rugged coast of western Cornwall, Stein feels a strong connections with the sea and its strong undertow of legends and symbols, its emotional power, its mix of delight and danger. “I think when my work is at its best”, she recounts, “it feels like it’s from now and from mythology. One of the great things about myths is that you can hitch your own baggage onto them. And that’s where the wit comes into it… I think it’s important that there’s a lightness of touch that makes it feel knowing”.
Now six of the artist’s jaunty motifs have floated onto a dazzling new Emporio Sirenuse tableware collection called By The Pool. Designed in collaboration with Swiss creative Marie Lusa, the collection consists of four plates and three bowls of different sizes, plus an espresso cup complete with saucer and lid, a sugar bowl and a milk bowl.
In pursuit of its commitment to local craft traditions, Emporio Sirenuse turned to Vietri Scotto, a well-established firm in the Amalfi Coast ‘ceramics town’ of Vietri sul Mare, to fire up the concept.
Founded in 1952, Vietri Scotto is an insider’s address, a ceramics concern that does not even have a showroom but works mostly on commission. For years it specialised in floor tiles, creating a line for Pierre Cardin before any other fashion house had dreamed of moving into homeware, and collaborating with famous Milanese designer Renzo Mongiardino on the interiors of film and opera director Franco Zeffirelli’s villa in Positano.
In the 1980s, reproductions of historic tiles for restoration projects were added to the company’s roster. The glorious green tiles you see today on the roof of Amalfi cathedral dome were modelled and fired by Vietri Scotto in 1988 using techniques and glazes that have changed little since the construction of the church in the early Middle Ages.
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Later, owner Daria Scotto and her husband Danilo Mariano added tableware, vases and ceramic sculpture to Vietri Scotto’s portfolio. But production has remained small scale, by choice. “We’re not interested in expanding, we don’t care too much about the money side of things”, Daria Scotto declares. “Quality and beauty are the things that drive us”.
Working mostly, as is traditional, with clay from the beds of Ogliara near Salerno, the company favours long firing cycles of 36 hours or more: “that way”, Scotto explains, “you avoid flaws, but above all, the colour has time to penetrate and achieve a really deep glaze”.
Each item in the By The Pool collection is decorated in striking malachite green on a pearly pink background, but no two pieces are alike. “Everything is hand painted”, Scotto says, “and the alchemy of the kiln also creates tiny variations in the hue and the finish. It’s those almost imperceptible differences that make truly artisanal work like this so special”.
Guests of Le Sirenuse will encounter the new tableware collection during lunch service at the Pool Bar. But there’s no need to wait until your next trip to Positano. By The Pool is available to buy right now at the Emporio Sirenuse online store.
Photos 3 & 5 (Vietri Scotto factory) by Chiara Goia. All other photos by Sergio Ghetti.
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