Maurizio Vetrugno's Song Dynasty Ceramics at MAO Turin

An exhibition of Song Dynasty ceramics at the Museo d'Arte Orientale (MAO) in Turin, opening October 31, 2018, showcases the collection of artist Maurizio Vetrugno. The pieces were gathered over twenty years of travel across Southeast Asia. Vetrugno's passion for Chinese ceramics began after he bought a house in Bali, where he frequented antique shops and became fascinated by the monochrome wares of the Song period (960-1279). The exhibition, curated by Marco Guglielminotti Trivel, is didactic in nature, featuring ceramics from kilns active during the Song, Yuan, and early Ming dynasties. Vetrugno's collection includes pieces found in Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Sulawesi, Bali, and Java—many recovered from shipwrecks along ancient trade routes. The show highlights how Song ceramics, prized for their purity of form and subtle colors, influenced Western modernists like Roger Fry and Herbert Read, as well as the Arts and Crafts movement and British Studio Pottery.