Riccardo Biavati and his wife Antonella run the Bottega delle Stelle workshop, which specialises in contemporary ceramics made using stoneware, modelled and painted by hand and fired at 1250 °C. Born in Ferrara in 1950, Biavati graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, after which he devoted himself to sculpture, favouring ceramic materials. From 1977 to 2007 he taught Pictorial Disciplines at the Dosso Dossi Art Institute in Ferrara, transferring his professional experience to teaching. At the beginning of the 1980s, his plastic research shifted to refractory clays and high temperatures and, later, to semi-refractory clays and stoneware, with soft colours and satin surfaces. In recent years, his chromatic research has focused in particular on crystalline glazes based on ash, of ancient oriental derivation, with almost monochromatic results.
Riccardo Biavati