Cereria Introna

Cereria Introna has been hand-pouring candles in Bari, Puglia since 1840, a craft now in its sixth generation and currently led by siblings Vincenzo and Rossella Introna. Made from natural paraffin wax with a pure cotton wick, each candle burns cleanly and without drip — but it's the forms that set them apart. Baguettes, wedges of cheese, porcini mushrooms, bunches of grapes, heirloom tomatoes: hyper-realistic wax sculptures rendered with such colour and texture that they are genuinely difficult to distinguish from the real thing. Each piece is made by hand in a small atelier of fifteen people, which means slight variation between them — a quality, not a flaw. Nearly two centuries of Italian candlemaking, shaped like something you might find at a market in Puglia.