Tuffetti Pair of Birds of the Same Species, by the Italian Felice Tosalli Lenci Manufactory, Turin, 1939. The sculptural group, titled “Tuffetti,” consists of two birds of the same species. One bird is crouching, and the other is standing upright. However, in nature, little grebes look different from how they are depicted here. The birds depicted by Felice Tosalli are Tachybaptus ruficollis, great crested grebes, diving birds with long beaks and slender bodies, featuring double crests and brown and black tufts on their heads, which they spread during danger or courtship. Compared to other creations by Tosalli, these two birds feature simplified plumage and anatomical details, yet they still retain all the unique characteristics of the species. Ceramics were introduced into the factory’s collection in the mid-1930s, but the sculptor had already worked on similar pieces in the 1920s. Thanks to its success, this new ceramic creation was chosen by the magazine “Domus” to illustrate the new proposals presented by Lenci at the Sixth Milan Triennale in 1936. It reappeared a few months later in the same magazine in an article promoting Italian ceramic production in anticipation of the 1937 Paris Exposition. Tosalli’s group, added by Lenci to the product catalog already published between 1933 and 1935, also appears in a color-printed advertising booklet from the 1950s. In good condition despite minor chips at the tips of the feathers. Lenci, Turin, 1939.