Frantoio Muraglia launches Orcio Gallo by designer Stella Tasca

We have revisited an ancient icon like the rooster, rich in meaning, with a new design jar: a symbol of light and rebirth

We at Frantoio Muraglia do not just produce oil: for years now, we have been bottling our extra virgin olive oil in a real design object: the terracotta jar. An object that serves to bring Apulian oil to the table but which also takes on a different meaning, becoming a work of art.

Design jars Frantoio Muraglia’shave always been entrusted to artists and creative people of the highest calibre; so much so that they are never simply containers for a product, albeit an excellent one but real creative ideas, original solutions, intuitions with a contemporary yet ancient taste which go well with the high quality, purity and genuineness of thethe extra virgin olive oil they contain.

The challenge we want to take forward? To ensure that our oil is not only an excellent extra virgin olive oil but also that it is considered a true work of art: we want our jars already highly appreciated by lovers of beauty, to also become the object of desire for lovers of art and design. An adventure that continues thanks to the flair and creativity of the artists involved: a dialogue between a high quality product and the flair of creative people in the name of tradition, but to revolutionise it.

If up to now in the Frantoio Muraglia jars we have been talking about our history, now we want to open up new avenues and revolutionise a true Apulian terracotta icon: the image of the rooster. How? With another designer terracotta jar, this time created by designer Stella Tasca and inspired by our traditional rooster!

Frantoio Muraglia’s signature Gallo jar by designer Stella Tasca

The apulian terracotta and its pitchers, in fact, have among their most representative subjects precisely the rooster, a classic souvenir of this region: from plates to jugs, from cups to bowls, the master potters of Grottaglie have made the rooster a true symbol of Apulia and its identity.

And it is precisely this icon that we at Frantoio Muraglia are now revisiting and reinterpreting in our new Gallo terracotta jar, created by designer Stella Tasca. But why the rooster? Because its symbolism brings back deep meanings, linked to light, rebirth, the sun and truth.

The rooster icon: the ancient symbolism of rebirth.

Since antiquity Greeks and Romans linked the rooster to the god Mercury, god of eloquence and trade. Like the deity the rooster was also seen as a messenger of the sun and a symbol of rebirth of the victory of truth over falsehood

In the 20th century, this ancient tradition came back into the limelight, when the rooster became stronger, haughty, colourful, a popular icon but also a flicker of colour.

In the ceramics of the Grottaglie masters the rooster remains an important symbol because this animal and its crowing are identified above all with the sun. The rooster is the messenger of each new day, the sentinel that calls the world to awakening, that greets the new day and invites us to a new beginning: a rebirth that is also spiritual, a return to truth after a night of fear, injustice and lies.

The rooster chases away the darkness and brings back the light, hence the truth: and after a year and a half spent amidst the anxieties and closures that we have unfortunately come to know with the Coronavirus, a symbol of light and rebirthis just what we all need.

And it is precisely on this rebirth and symbolism that designer Stella Tasca’s work for the Gallo terracotta jar signed Frantoio Muraglia focuses. The artist has precisely focused her stylistic research on the rooster as a symbol of renewal:

“I focused on the meaning of rebirth,” he says, “and I imagined it as a big eye, which for me represents the ability to look and therefore to understand being present in things: in this case, a prodigious abandonment of darkness. A watchful and attentive eye emerging from a cloud, symbolising therefore the ability to rise again, which now gives the earth water, the source of life, which will then become precious oil.“

L’Orcio Gallo: oil as the identity of Apulia & symbol of light

The rooster by Stella Tasca, a designer known for her style and bright colours, becomes a ‘floral’ animal, as she herself defines it: a flash of light, sun and colour proud as one who finds a new way, reaching out towards a new road. Its tail evokes and celebrates the olive tree, another symbol par excellence of Apulian identity, thus linking it even more closely to the territory and the product that the terracotta oil jar encloses and protects: the rooster’s feathers become olive leaves, and thus life itself.

Accompanying such ancient suggestions with bold, ultra-modern fluorescent colours, the Stella Tasca and Frantoio Muraglia rooster is a positive, bold and carefree icon, complemented by a touch of gold on its wings and eye for an original and bursting effect. Thejar, a terracotta Gallolconcentrate of rebirth, ight and Apulian identity, carries a product equally rich in character, symbolic strength, flavour and aroma:oil Intensely Fruity , which Frantoio Muraglia’swill accompany your dishes with a beneficial burst of light and colour as well as its ancient, original and unmistakable taste.

Summer is coming: the days are finally getting longer and sunlight is resuming its space in our lives and days. The rooster Stella Tasca’s terracotta oil jar for the Frantoio Muraglia sings to us all, inviting us to re-embrace the light after months of darkness, urging us to be reborn and let the returning sun flood us.

Not a simple earthenware jar for oil, then, but a design success with a profound meaning, which becomes a tribute to tradition and an affirmation of originality, courage and optimism. The Gallo oil jar of Frantoio Muraglia created by Stella Tasca, thus becomes a symbol of a new light and rebirth, for all of us.

–> discover the Il Gallo ceramic jar