When my grandmother - Rosemarie (nee Mancusi) Monari passed away in 2017, my father gave me a set of her candleholders. I remembered she collected porcelain and crystal, most of which were kept untouched in a glass case - elephants, swans, etc - in a room with white carpet and furniture beneath clear plastic.
I've never been a collector of the fragile, although of course I value the loveliness and origin of the notoriously beautiful, hard-to-fire Capodimonte. I wondered if the lustrous glaze had ever held burning candles. I keep them bound and protected until I find their safe home here.
Until then, the candle sits in me - hot firelight burning slow messily waxing a series of past and present lives. Capodimonte literally means “top of the mountain” and so here rest deep in the farm hills the unvarnished beauty of these Naples-forged flowers; stubborn soft paste.
