The following handwritten note was received from Mr. Wendell Garrett, Senior Vice President of Sotheby’s, Editor-At-Large of The Magazine Antiques and author of numerous books,
June 13, 2005, Dear Walter and Karen, Kindest thanks for your thoughtfulness and generosity for the gift of Italian Pottery Marks. I am most impressed. The book is comprehensive in scope, scholarly in research, beautiful in its illustrations, and clear in its writing. Everyone interested in ceramics - collectors, curators, scholars and students - should have a copy on his or her shelf. Warmest regards, Wendell

Italian Pottery Marks from Cantagalli to Fornasetti, 1850 -1950 was, the first and only guide to the identification of Italian pottery written in English for collectors, antiques dealers and pottery lovers. The book’s international popularity and the public’s thirst for more information on a subject that had generally been neglected by American and English writers for more than a century, has given rise to a series of books based on the regional pottery centers of Italy, beginning with Faenza: The City of Ceramics. The Del Pellegrino’s deep-reaching research and investigations into Italian pottery history led to yet another book revealing an important but previously unknown artist with a direct link to William De Morgan during his Fulham period.

Ebay averages between 1500 and 2000 pieces of Italian pottery and porcelain a day on its site. Most go unidentified. The standard classical, and expensive, books by authors such as Litchfield, Chaffers and Cox offer only a sparse mention of Italian pottery during this period and are not very useful.
For the very first time information on more than one hundred and twenty Italian ceramics factories, studios and artists and over 300 identified marks and signatures, many in color, becomes readily accessible to those who cannot read Italian thereby making this identification guide an indispensable tool.