A

Sea
of
Cultures

Lustreware
from Spain
A Collection ofMedieval Ceramics across
Hispano-Moresque Ceramics
the Mediterranean:
Egypt, Syria, Byzantium,
SAM FOGG Italy and Spain 1
 A
Sea
of
Cultures
Medieval Ceramics across the Mediterranean:
Egypt, Syria, Byzantium, Italy and Spain
21 April - 20 May 2022

Catalogue by Matthew Reeves

3
 Contents
Page

Introduction 9

Mamluk Egypt and Syria 11

Byzantium 35

Spain 61

Italy 107

4 5
 Faenza

Montelupo

Gubbio
Deruta

Orvieto

Constantinople

Manises and Thessaloniki

Paterna

Corinth

Map of the Mediterranean basin highlighting key

pottery-producing centres represented in this catalogue

6 7
 Introduction

I
n the mid-19th century, glazed storage jars similar to the fourth
item in this catalogue (which in the 14th century would have
carried exotic fruits and spices from Damascus to Europe) were
discovered by collectors in Sicily, still in use.

Such stories, with their evocations of complex and layered cultural

dialogues between East and West, are the subject of this exhibition,
which focuses on the ceramics produced and circulated through
the Islamic and Christian lands around the Mediterranean during
the Middle Ages. In the 12th and 13th centuries the sources of the
most sophisticated vessels were in the East; in Byzantium and
particularly in the Islamic kingdoms of Syria and Egypt. The forms,
the technology of glazes, and the use of lustre followed historic
trade routes around the sea and to the West. From the 14th century
brilliant, highly decorated wares were produced in Spain and later
also in Italy.

These local styles are memorable and distinct, but there is a unity
to the appearance of the ceramics produced right across the
Mediterranean that reveals a tightly linked community of people
connected, rather than separated, by water. Whether Christian or
Islamic, they share many of the same shapes, patterns, and images,
and at their best they were made with a comparable sense of
freedom, ambition, and economy.

Sam Fogg

8 9
 Mamluk Egypt
and Syria

10 11
1 An inscribed conical bowl emblazoned with the emblem of the
arms bearer

T
hree fish swim around the centre of this deep conical bowl, Mamluk Egypt
their silhouettes picked out in a rich brown glaze against the c. 1300-1340
surrounding slip-covered background. Diagonal spokes divide the 12.2 cm (height) x 23.9 cm (diameter); Earthenware with
steep flaring sides of the vessel above them into three fields, which are brown, green, and clear glazes, with incised decoration over a
filled with Arabic inscriptions in thuluth calligraphy picked out using cream-coloured slip on red clay, potted with a slightly carinated
a honey-hued glaze within fine sgraffito borders. Within the spokes body raised on a tall, flaring foot. The exterior and underside of
the foot thickly glazed and slip-coated. Repaired breaks across
themselves are depictions of maces. Splashes of green glaze decorate a the body. Some chip losses to the glaze around the rim of the
short section of the exterior just below the rim, but the potter seems to vessel and to parts of the interior decoration, as well as small
have abandoned the design elsewhere in favour of a clear, unified glaze. chips to the foot. Three tripod scars in the central well.

Provenance
As is also the case for the larger bowl in this catalogue (see Cat. 3), the Private European collection until 2013;
form and decoration of this conical bowl is typical of a well-known and Art market, London
chronologically defined group of Mamluk ceramics carrying intricate
sgraffito designs that date to the first half of the fourteenth century. They
were produced in Mamluk Cairo and particularly in Fustat by potters
who occasionally signed their wares, a practice that suggests ceramic
production was considered a noble rather than quotidian practice. A
number of fragments have been excavated at Alexandria, Luxor and
Fustat, and intact examples are preserved in institutional collections
including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the London
museums1, and the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo.2

The incorporation of mace emblems in three prominent places on our

example associates it with the office of the arms bearer (silahdar), who
were a privileged part of the Sultanate guard during the reign of al-Nāṣir
Muḥammad (d. 1341) and represented a high amiral class in Mamluk

2, Maurice S. Dimand,
1, Cf. an example in ‘A Recent Gift of Near
the Victoria and Albert Eastern Art’ in Metropolitan
Museum, inv. C.163-1932; Museum of Art Bulletin, o.s.,
Geza Fehérvári, Islamic Vol. 26 (1931). pp. 11–12;
pottery: A comprehensive Esin Atil, Renaissance of
study based on the Barlow Islam: Art of the Mamluks,
Collection, London, 1973, Washington D.C., 1981,
no. X.10, p. 133, pl. 74a. nos. 94-5.

12 13
society.3 Such blazons are thought to have drawn influence from the more
longstanding emblem tradition found on coinage, and were part of a wider
visual system developed to help define and augment the codification of
the empire’s various social and military groups, as well as their roles
within official ceremonial contexts.4 The dedicatory tone of its thuluth
inscriptions, which include the phrase ‘from what was made for our lord,
the most glorious amir, the revered, the well-served, the most exalted’ is
a standard formula widespread across this family of wares, and has been
interpreted by modern scholars as having a public function in praise of the
patron or owner.5

Mamluk potters borrowed extensively from Eastern Mediterranean

ceramic traditions, especially Crusader, Seljuk, and Byzantine-derivative
wares, which in turn have designs that scholars now believe may have
evolved from even earlier, seventh- and eighth-century Coptic prototypes.6
At the same time, the raised elements of these vessels’ designs (as
exemplified by the inscriptions, mace blazons, and fish7 on our example),
are highlighted in glazes that stand proud of and contrast dramatically Fig. 1
Basin inscribed with
with the pale slip surrounding them, an approach that echoes both visually the name of al-Nāṣir
and conceptually the metal inlays on contemporary brass vessels, which Muḥammad
were a defining source of influence on Mamluk earthenwares during the Mamluk Egypt
period (fig. 1). Early 14th century (before
1341)
21 cm (height) x 33.7 cm
(diameter); engraved and
inlaid brass
Paris, musée du Louvre,
inv. OA7880/116

5, For a recent discussion

of inscriptions on Mamluk
vessels of this type see
Walker 2004, especially pp.
69-70 and pp. 83-6. I am
grateful to Marcus Fraser
for bringing the literature on
this subject to my attention,
and to him and Will
3, Atil 1981, pp. 50-53. Kwiatkowski for their help
translating the inscriptions
on our vessel.
4, L.A. Mayer, Saracenic
Heraldry, Oxford, 1933;
see also Bethany J. Walker, 6, Walker 2004, pp. 1-114,
‘Ceramic Evidence for p. 13.
Political Transformations
in Early Mamluk Egypt’, 7, Fish appear on another
in Mamluk Studies Review, Mamluk conical bowl in
Vol. 8/1 (2004), pp. 1-114, the National Museums of
p. 67. Scotland, Edinburgh.

14 15
2 A signed bowl fragment inscribed with the image of a Rider
on Horseback
D
espite its fragmentary state, this beguiling sherd retains all the Mamluk Egypt, signed by the potter Muhammad?
evidence of having been meticulously planned, decorated and Late 13th century
fired by a highly skilled potter. It depicts a rider on horseback, 10.3 x 9.7 cm; Incised slipware with a yellow-tinted glaze over
picked out in a creamy-coloured slip against the vessel’s reddish clay. cream-coloured slip on a red clay. Pale yellow glaze to the
At the top of his chest is an Arabic inscription that seems to read underside.
'Muhammad' and may well be the signature of the potter himself. A
Provenance
golden-yellow glaze is selectively worked over the surface of the clay, Collection of Maurice Bouvier (1901-1981), Alexandria, and by
pooling more thickly over a background design of tight corkscrew descent to his son George Bouvier until 2014
scribbles and throwing the figure into dramatic relief. He is depicted
carrying a switch or the reigns of his steed in his raised right hand, and
judging from his scale, the vessel from which this fragment comes must
have been a shallow bowl or a sloping-walled dish of large proportions.

Huntsmen and riders on horseback were themes that proved immensely

popular for Medieval potters across a vast geographic region, and this
tantalizing fragment is a vivid testament to the complex melting pot of
aesthetic influences that come together on Mediterranean ceramics of
the Middle Ages. Its stylistic treatment, particularly on details such as
the figure’s keyhole-shaped eyes and high, broad forehead, suggest that
its potter was responding to forms of figurative decoration developed
on Islamic ceramics from Ayyubid Syria and Fatimid Egypt; the
manipulation of the red clay and its pale slip covering layer to create
an image marked by strong contrasting tones was likely informed by, if
not a direct attempt to imitate, the appearance of inlaid metalwork and
lustred ceramics from these regions (fig. 1). It has strong formal links
to surviving Fatimid vessels such as a large dish in the Freer Gallery in
Washington, where the rider’s forearm is brought across the body in an
identical manner (fig. 2). Many of its closest material analogs are the so-
called ‘Zeuxippus wares’, sgraffito vessels, and other Byzantine redwares Fig. 1 (above) Fig. 2 (below)
A lustred bowl with a A large dish with a
huntsman on horseback huntsman on horseback
Fatimid Egypt Fatimid Egypt
12th century 12th century
Cairo, Islamic Art Museum 38.4 cm (diameter) x 7.5
cm (depth); Tin-glazed
earthenware with lustred
decoration
Washington, D.C., Freer
Gallery of Art, inv.
F1941.12

16 17
traded across the Aegean, but its peculiar use of dense corkscrew mark
making reveals an approach largely absent on vessels discovered as part
of excavations across this region. Smooth red-clay vessels covered in
similar corkscrew sgraffito designs closely comparable to those on the
background surface of our fragment have however been found in large
numbers at Fustat,1 as well as on rarer intact vessels such as a large
bowl with geometric decoration in the al-Sabah collection, Kuwait.2
They are now thought to be a class of Syrian/Egyptian ware produced
in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries that bridge the gap
between the Byzantine sgraffitos of the Eastern Mediterranean (such as
numbers 6 and 7 in this catalogue) and the more fully developed Mamluk
slipwares (such as numbers 1 and 3) produced during the third reign of
al-Nāṣir Muḥammad (610-641 AH/1310-1341 AD) (see figs. 3-4). Most
(like the al-Sabah bowl) are complex but non-figurative, but despite the
relative infrequency of figurative decoration some sporadic examples
have survived which reinforce the link (fig. 5) and suggest a potter either
active in the Mamluk territories or perhaps travelling from further afield Fig. 3 (above)
producing works for a local clientele.3 Bowl with fleurs-de-lys Fig. 4 (below)
Mamluk Egypt, found at Fragment of a bowl (with
Fustat the head of a bird?)
Early 14th century Mamluk Egypt, excavated
8.2 cm; glazed earthenware at Oxyrhynchus
with sgraffito decoration Early 14th century
London, British Museum, 4.8 cm; glazed
inv. 1921,0301.2 earthenware with sgraffito
decoration
London, British Museum,
inv. OA+.15858

Fig. 5 (above)
Fragment of a conical bowl
with a figure holding a cross
Mamluk Egypt
Late 13th or early 14th
century
St Petersburg, State
Hermitage Museum 2, Giovanni Curatola, Arte 3, A strongly analogous
della Civiltà: La Collezione fragment depicting a lion
al-Sabah, Kuwait, Exh. (the sovereign emblem of
Cat., Milan, Palazzo Reale, Sultan Baybars I), dated
2010, no. 192; see also to c. 1260-1277, is in the
1, Bethany J. Walker, Oliver Watson, Ceramics Benaki Museum in Athens,
‘Ceramic Evidence for from Islamic Lands, inv. 40374, illustrated in
Political Transformations London, 2004, nos. R.18, Anna Ballian ed., Benaki
in Early Mamluk Egypt’, p. 411 and R.20, p. 412, as Museum: A Guide to the
in Mamluk Studies Review, well as a small sherd also in Museum of Islamic Art,
vol. 8/1 (2004), pp. 1-114, the al-Sabah Collection, inv. Athens, 2006, no. 111, p.
p. 12, fig.4, p. 25, fig. 9. LNS 971 C p, p. 414. 99.

18 19
3 A massive Mamluk bowl inscribed with a serpent and the
blazon of the sword bearers

20 21
 A
massively-potted Mamluk earthenware bowl of deep, rounded Mamluk Egypt
form raised on a tall cylindrical foot. It is decorated using a c. 1300-1340
technique known as sgraffito, in which the main elements of a 38.5 cm (diameter) x 26 cm (depth); A deep slipware bowl
design are scratched through a layer of pale slip to reveal the deeper with incised decoration and brown and green glaze over
colour of the body clay beneath. On our vessel this takes the form of a cream-coloured slip on a dark reddish-brown clay. The
central armorial roundel decorated with a sword, and further groups of underside with a clear lead glaze and some dotted green
highlights around the rim. Losses to the rim and base, the
concentric bands spreading up the sides of the bowl, the largest of which latter restored.
contains a serpent. The inclusion of this creature, rare on such vessels,
is thought to be a symbol of cosmological significance, historically Provenance
associated with the concept of al-Sakina (the Divine Presence); both Khawam Collection, Cairo (before 1970);
Hotel Drouot, Paris, 20th November 1974, lot 21;
the shape of the bowl and the positioning of the serpent echo the Collection of Claude and Françoise Bourelier
interpretations of this concept as the ‘ouroboros serpent that wraps
herself like a snake on the site of the sanctuary of the Ka’ba and provides Exhibited
Abraham with the exact location of the sanctuary’.1 Zurich, October 1976, no. 73 (according to the sale
catalogue of the Bourelier collection)

Unlike the brilliant blue and white porcelain-like tiles made by Mamluk Published
potters in Syria for architectural adornment (and represented by no. 5 in Helen Philon, Benaki Museum Athens: Early Islamic
this catalogue) the majority of Mamluk tablewares produced in Egypt Ceramics, Ninth to Late Twelfth Centuries, vol. 1, Athens,
1980, p. 68 and p. 116, fig. 242.
during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were decorated using clear
and brown glazes over pale slips, giving modern viewers the suggestion Abbas Daneshvari, Of Serpents and Dragons in Islamic Art:
that these were modest objects, an idea that completely belies their An Iconographical Study, Mazda Publishers, California,
technical brilliance and – as with our vessel – astonishingly ambitious 2011, p. 154, fig. 35.
scale. In fact, the muted greens, browns, and honeyed hues of Egyptian
Mamluk ceramics were adopted because of their brilliant ability to evoke
the effects produced by brass, silver and gold inlays on contemporary
metalwork. Their conical and hemispherical forms also parallel those
of both metalwork and glassware, revealing an interlinked language of
design across a spectrum of artforms.

This massive bowl has a shared provenance, and forms a pair with,
another now in the al-Sabah Collection at the National Museum of
Kuwait.2 Some modern scholars have suggested that these types of deep,
hemispherical vessels were used as ‘barracks ware’ for the kitchens
and mess tables of the retainers and guards of the Mamluk elite.3 In the
case of our example, these would have been members of the office of
the silahdar (sword or arms bearer), whose blazon appears prominently
in the circular field at its centre. A similar footed hemispherical bowl,
4, inv. 23832, illustrated
decorated with the same sword blazon against a rectangular field within in Esin Atil, Renaissance of
its central well, was found at Jabal Adda in Nubia in 1966 and is now Islam: Art of the Mamluks,
preserved in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo.4 Based on the form, type Washington D.C., 1981, pp.
and appearance of these vessels’ blazons, as well as groups of inscriptions 186-7, no. 94. A conical
bowl fragment with the
occasionally inscribed onto their surfaces, the family of wares to which same blazon is in the British
they belong are dateable to a period spanning from the end of the Museum, London, inv.
thirteenth century up to the end of the reign of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad (d. 1908,0522.1012.
641 AH/1341 AD).5 It was in this period that the practice of marking
5, See Esin Atil,
vessels with emblems of status, although not an Egyptian invention, 1, Abbas Daneshvari,
Renaissance of Islam,
nonetheless found its full and potent efflorescence. Of Serpents and Dragons
Washington D.C., 1981,
in Islamic Art: An
pp. 50-53 ; E. Gibbs,
Iconographical Study, Mazda
Mamluk Ceramics: 648-
Publishers, California, 2011,
923 AH/1250-1517 AD,
pp. 120-1.
Transactions of the Oriental
2, inv. LNS 125C: M. Ceramic Society, London,
Jenkins, Islamic Art in the Vol. 63, (1998-1999), p. 25;
Kuwait National Museum, See more recently Bethany
The al-Sabah Collection, J. Walker, ‘Ceramic
London, 1983, p. 83. Evidence for Political
Transformations in Early
3, Oliver Watson, Ceramics Mamluk Egypt’, in Mamluk
from Islamic Lands, London, Studies Review, vol. 8/1
2004, Cats. R.15 and R.16, (2004), pp. 1-114, especially
pp. 408-9. pp. 57-60.

22 23
24 25
4 A blue and black albarello with a design of hanging
palmettes
L
arge palmettes with the appearance of cut seedpods hang from the Syria, Damascus?
shoulder of this imposing Syrian albarello, with rows of berries Early 14th century
picked out in a turquoise blue against a pale cream background. 31.5 cm (height) x 18 cm (diameter); Stonepaste with
Further berry forms and splashes of black and turquoise blue fill the underglaze painting in turquoise-blue and black on a buff-
wedge-like spaces between each palmette. A thick horizontal band of coloured body, potted with a stout, waisted form raised on
circular motifs encircles the lower body, just above the foot, while below a broad foot ring, a shallow shoulder and inward-sloping
neck, and a large beaded rim. The interior is thickly glazed
the upper rim a pattern of alternating turquoise stripes and thicker, cross- with some turquoise tinting. Bands of loss around the rim,
hatched black panels serves to visually elongate the neck. Thick bands of shoulder, and lower body from use. Thermoluminescence
black encircle the rim, shoulder and lower body. analysis undertaken by Oxford Authentication in November
2021 confirms a date of firing between 600 and 900 years
ago. Report by Helen Mason, 8th December 2021.
Following the destruction of Raqqa by the Il-Khanids in 12651 Damascus
absorbed many of the region’s best potters and began to corner the local Provenance
and international market for fine stonepaste ceramics. In the decades Christie's London, 26th April 1994, lot 244;
around 1300 a new class of pottery inspired by contemporary Iranian Old collection label on base '259.000'
wares developed in the Damascus workshops, its decorative lexicon
dominated by the juxtaposition of finely-painted motifs in black and
blue on an almost pearlescent white ground. The ‘Sultanabad’ style, as it
has become known, developed with confidence in the city’s workshops
before being carried further west to Mamluk Egypt, where fragments
with underglaze blue and black have been discovered in some quantities.2
Among the grandest wares produced in this period by Damascus potters
are storage jars or albarelli, a name derived from the bastardized Italian
translation of the Arabic phrase for pots of terracotta ‘al-burma’. They
are a type of ceramic vessel first thought to have originated in eleventh-
or twelfth-century Iran before spreading across the Mediterranean and
beyond over the course of the Middle Ages.3 They enjoyed popularity in
an international market, many having been exported to Europe filled with

1, For a comprehensive
study of Raqqa ceramics
during the short-lived
resurgence of production
in the late twelfth/early
thirteenth century, see
Marilyn Jenkins-Madina,
Raqqa Revisited: Ceramics
of Ayyubid Syria, New York,
2006.

2, Cf. Oliver Watson,

Ceramics from Islamic
Lands: The Al-Sabah
Collection, London, 2004,
pp. 420-1.

3, Laura Weinstein, Ink Silk

& Gold: Islamic Art from
the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, Boston, 2015, p. 57.

26 27
spices, candied fruits and ginger, before being retained by apothecaries
and diverted to other uses. Valencian apothecaries’ inventories of the
fourteenth century list ‘pots de domas’ among their holdings, and some
numbers of these magnificent vessels were rediscovered in Sicily by Fig. 1
nineteenth-century collectors who labelled them ‘Siculo-Arabian’.4 Such Albarello with hanging
was the longevity of their use and appeal that they are thought to be palmette design
Mamluk Syria or Egypt
among the only pre-sixteenth-century Islamic pottery to have survived Late 14th century
above ground since it was produced.5 31.1 cm (height) x 16.5
cm (diameter); Stonepaste
Damascus albarelli evolved away from the small, faceted and sometimes with underglaze painting
in blue and black
heavily waisted forms found on their Raqqa forebears and instead took Paris, musée du Louvre,
on the much grander and stouter silhouette of our vessel, with its tall, inv. OA4091
inward-sloping neck and shallow, angular shoulder profile. Similar pieces
have been excavated at Hama in Syria, and examples with comparable
decorative motifs to those used on our jar are preserved in the musée du
Louvre6 (fig. 1), the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford7 (fig. 2), the al-Sabah Fig. 2
Collection in Kuwait8, the Qatar Museum, and the Museum für Islamische Albarello with vegetal
motifs
Kunst in Berlin (fig. 3). It is to magnificent early vessels like ours that the Mamluk Syria
Valencian potters of the fourteenth and fifteenth century (as exemplified Late 13th or early 14th
by the two Manises albarelli in this catalogue; see nos. 16 and 17) turned century
for inspiration, reflecting the high status and prestige given to Syrian 24.5 cm (height) x 15.5
cm (diameter); Stonepaste
ceramics in Europe during the Middle Ages. with underglaze painting
in blue and black
Oxford, Ashmolean
Museum, Reitlinger Gift,
inv. 1978.1683

Fig. 3
Albarello with inscriptions
and four-petalled motifs
Mamluk Syria
14th century
26.6 cm (height) x 14.9
cm (diameter); Stonepaste
with underglaze painting
in blue and black
Berlin, Museum für
Islamische Kunst, inv. I.
3978

4, Arthur Lane, Later

Islamic Pottery, London,
1957 (1971 ed.), p. 17.

5, Ibid

6, For dating see 7 For dating see James W.

Arabesques et jardins Allan, Islamic ceramics,
de paradis: collections Oxford, 1991, no. 26, p. 44..
françaises d’art islamique,
Exh. Cat., Paris, 1989, no. 8, Watson 2004, no. R.3,
10, p. 34. p. 400.

28 29
5 Two Mamluk tiles decorated with vegetal motifs

S
tonepaste, also known by the terms fritware and faience, describes a Mamluk Syria, Damascus
c. 1420-1450 (most probably after 1423 and before 1451)
type of ceramic made using the addition of quartz and ground silica
to a fine clay. It is a mix that allows for a lower firing temperature 18.1 x 20.2 x 1.6 cm (height x width x depth); Stonepaste
and a stronger fused bond between the glaze and the supporting body with cobalt blue underglaze decoration on a pale buff-
than typical clay-heavy wares, thus lowering the risk of flaking and coloured body. The tile with berry heads broken into four
parts and rejoined. The top left corner of the tile with stems
delamination to the glaze both during the firing process and over time.
broken diagonally and rejoined.
It was first developed by Islamic potters in Iraq during the ninth century
before moving to Egypt where it was perfected during the Fatimid Provenance
dynasty, and from there to Iran and Syria where it was in use by the end Artcurial, Paris, 11th April 2013, lots 133 and 134;
Collection of Pierre le-Tan, Paris
of the twelfth century.

These two blue and white glazed tiles represent one of the highpoints of
any stonepaste ware to have been produced by fifteenth-century Mamluk
potters. Snaking vertically across their surface with unbounded freedom
are sinuous, curling leaf sprays, vines, and berry clusters picked out
in a rich cobalt blue against a brilliant white ground. They must have
been produced as part of a single commission since they both share
a distinctive blue double-border running down their left-hand edges.
Scholars have so far been unable to ascertain exactly where this was
since rectangular tiles of this type are vanishingly rare; barely more than
a dozen are known and are now divided between institutions including
the musée du Louvre in Paris1, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto2, and
the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo (fig. 1). However, several hundred
extremely closely related tiles of a smaller, hexagonal format but almost
certainly produced by the same potters can still be found covering the
walls in the mosque and tomb of the Mamluk dignitary Ghars al-Din Fig. 1 (above)
Khalil al-Tawrizi (d. 1430) in Damascus, which was begun in 1423 (fig. A panel of nine tiles with
ships, architecture, and
2).3 And in the Tawrizi museum is a square tile with a similar double
vegetal decoration
border to that which features on ours, suggesting a shared provenance Mamluk Syria, Damascus
Second quarter 15th century
Cairo, Museum of Islamic Fig. 2 (below)
Art Section of dado tiles in the
tomb chamber of Ghars
al-Din Khalil al-Tawrizi
(d. 1430)
Syria, Damascus
Image: Millner 2015, p. 73

30 31
perhaps to that site.4 A large group of hexagonal examples of a slightly
variant type also survive in the mosque at Edirne, which seem to have
been commissioned by Murad II (d. 1451), and in places bear his name.
Although different in conception and design, they offer a useful terminus
ante quem for the dating of the group as a whole.5

The technique of applying cobalt pigment to stonepaste wares is beset by

risks, and during the medieval period it had a constant tendency to run, so
the relative lack of this defect on our tiles indicates that they were fired
in a kiln whose temperature was controlled with great precision and skill.
Their decorative lexicon of large willow-, plantain-, and banana-like leaf
sprays is heavily indebted to the types of vegetation depicted on Chinese
porcelain, which was imported into the Mamluk lands in some quantities
during the period and profoundly influenced its local potters (fig. 3).

Fig. 3
Foliated plate with rocks,
plants, and melons
China
14th century
40 cm (diameter); Porcelain
painted with cobalt blue
under transparent glaze
New York, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, inv.
1991.253.35

3, Hexagonal examples produced by the same potters as

our pair and generally localized to Damascus and/or the
Ghars al-Din complex specifically include examples in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Aga Khan
Museum in Toronto, the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Dresden,
the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the al-Sabah Collection
and the Tareq Rajab Museum in Kuwait, the David
Collection, Copenhagen (outlined with turquoise), and the
National Museum in Damascus (some also with turquoise);
see Millner 2015, p. 242; Rainer G. Richter, ‘Die Kunst 4 Millner 2015, p. 253,
1, Sophie Makariou, des Islam im Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden’, in Joachim fig. 6.26.
Islamic Art at the musée Gierlichs and Annette Hagerdorn eds, Islamische Kunst
du Louvre, Paris, 2012, no. in Deutschland, Mainz am Rhein, 2004, p. 80; Giovanni 5, John Carswell,
129, p. 217. Curatola, Arte della Civiltà: La Collezione al-Sabah, ‘Ceramics’, in Yanni
Kuwait, Exh. Cat., Milan, Palazzo Reale, 2010, nos. 231-2; Petsopoulos ed., Tulips,
2, Arthur Millner, Kjeld von Folsach, Art from the World of Islam in The David Arabesques & Turbans:
Damascus Tiles, Munich, Collection, Copenhagen, 2001, p. 165, no. 203; Esin Atil, Decorative Arts from the
London and New York, Renaissance of Islam: Art of the Mamluks, Washington D.C., Ottoman Empire, London,
2015, p. 10. 1981, pp. 177-182, nos. 86-91. 1982, p. 79.

32 33
 Byzantium

34 35
6 A champlevé-decorated bowl with a hare sleeping among
plant tendrils
O
n middle-Byzantine dishes like this one, decorated with what Byzantine Empire, probably Corinth
are known as champlevé designs, the body of the vessel is either Late 12th or early 13th Century
fully or partially coated with a thick layer of white slip before 26 cm (diameter) x 5.6 cm (height); Incised slipware dish with
the decoration is scratched back through it to reveal the ground colour incised decoration on a pale buff-coloured slip over a red clay,
beneath. In this way the two surfaces and colours - one a deep red raised on a short cylindrical foot. Some throwing marks and
clay and the other a creamy slip - are thrown into strong relief and the trails on the underside of the vessel. Traces of a yellow glaze
near the rim in places. Marine encrustation to the reverse.
pictorial scheme given a shadow-catching texture and a crisp legibility.
Our example, with its gently flaring sides, is decorated with the image of Provenance
a hare sleeping or lying in defence among a tangle of plant forms. The Private collection, France;
creature’s long back legs are given full prominence while slender ears Private collection, UK, acquired from the above in December
2000
poke straight up from behind one of them, which has brought up and over
the top of its head as if in a gesture of self-protection. He lies curled up
with only his front paws breaking the perimeter of the sharp circular field
with which he is framed. Around him is a broad outer border decorated at
evenly spaced intervals with roundels filled with cross-hatching, roundels
of concentric rings, and curlicue-like flourishes. There are some traces
of an ochre glaze which may once have covered the design completely
in order to make the vessel waterproof. The fact that it is now all but
missing (coupled with the presence of marine deposits on the underside
of the dish) indicates that our vessel has spent most of the last eight
centuries underwater.

Our plate’s iconography is reminiscent of Fatimid ceramics of the twelfth

century, though it was most likely produced in the city of Corinth where a
number of similar vessels have been excavated.1

1, Charles H. Morgan, The

Byzantine Pottery. Corinth.
Results of Excavations
Conducted by the American
School of Classical Studies
at Athens, Cambridge,
Mass., 1942; Helen C.
Evans and William D.
Wixom, eds, The Glory of
Byzantium: Art and Culture
of the Middle Byzantine
Era, A.D. 843-1261, New
York, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, 1997, no. 190, p.
268.

36 37
It is thought to have formed part of a large cargo of such ceramics found
in a group of shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea, all of which can be attributed
to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Closely related fragments have
also been unearthed at sites including Ephesus in modern-day Turkey.2
Most surviving ceramics of the middle-Byzantine period are executed in
simpler sgraffito motifs, rather than the more meticulous and involved
technique of champlevé decoration exemplified by our example. Others
of its type can be found in a handful of museum collections including the
David Collection in Copenhagen3, the British Museum in London4, the
Metropolitan Museum in New York5, and the Benaki Museum in Athens
(fig. 1). A figurative dish utilising the same pictorial device of allowing
small details to break through the design’s circular framing elements, is
preserved in the Archeological Museum of Ancient Corinth (fig. 2).6

Fig. 1 (above)
Plate with a hare between
large roundels
Probably Northern Greece Fig. 2 (below)
or Eastern Thrace Plate with lovers
Late 12th or early 13th Probably Northern Greece
century or Eastern Thrace
Glazed earthenware with First half 13th century
champlevé decoration Glazed earthenware with
Athens, Benaki Museum, champlevé decoration
inv. 30498, gift of Jeanette Archaia Korinthos,
Zakou Archeological Museum

4 Ken Dark, Byzantine

Pottery, 2001, fig. 36.

5, Evans and Wixom 1997,

no. 191, p. 269.
2, Cf. a fragment of a bowl
6, Byzantine and Post-
excavated at Ephesus in
Byzantine Art, Exh. Cat.,
the British Museum, inv.
Athens, Byzantine and
OA+.15911.
Christian Museum, 1986,
3, inv. 30/1969 cat. no. 301.

38 39
7&8 Two shallow sgraffito dishes depicting falcons

40 41
 Both of our dishes are likely to have been discovered in the late 1960s,
when it is thought that a twelfth-century shipwreck laden with slipware
vessels was excavated off the coast of Izmir in Turkey.2 Further cargoes
have since been discovered at sites in the northern Sporades, off the coast
due east of Athens, and near Castellorizo and Antalya.3 From around
1967 onwards a number of such dishes, undoubtedly produced by the
same potters on account of their almost identical proportions, style and
treatment, came onto the market and several were acquired by American
and European public collections including the British Museum4, the
Victoria and Albert Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts5, and the
Cleveland Museum of Art.6 Over sixty examples, many of almost identical
treatment to our pair, are now preserved in the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire
in Geneva.7 Thought to be the work of potters active in the city of Corinth,
they are recognised as key evidence for our understanding of Byzantine
commerce in the twelfth century, underpinned by the empire’s reliance on
the connecting waters of the Mediterranean.8

Byzantine Empire, perhaps Corinth Byzantine Empire, perhaps Corinth

Mid-12th century Mid-12th century

Dish with a falcon encircled by chevrons: 25.7 cm (diameter) Dish with a falcon between leafy branches: 26.5 cm
x 9.2 cm (height); Incised slipware with clear glaze on a deep (diameter) x 9.5 cm (height); Incised slipware with clear
pinkish buff clay, raised on a short cylindrical foot ring. The glaze on a brick-red clay, raised on a short cylindrical foot
underside unglazed. Marine encrustations across the lower ring. Some splashes of slip around the rim on the otherwise
right-hand register of the design and across the reverse. unglazed underside. Marine encrustations across the lower
Broken in two and repaired. half with corresponding inpainted losses to the decoration.

Provenance Provenance
Collection of Claude and Françoise Bourelier Private collection, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, acquired c.
late 1960s to early 1980s

5, P. Armstrong,
Both of these shallow dishes are potted in a similar way, with broad and `Byzantine Glazed Ceramic
stable foot rings supporting shallow, flaring interiors framed, in each case Tableware in the Collection
a short, sharply raised rim suggestive of the influence of metalwork forms of the Detroit Institute of
on the ceramic arts. They are both decorated at the centres with large Arts', in Bulletin of the
2, Departmental notes for Detroit Institute of Arts, 71,
images of falcons, their outlines and a few picked-out forms and feathers a dish with a wading bird 1/2 (1997), pp. 4-15.
delicately delineated using the sgraffito method, in which a vessel's clay is in the Victoria and Albert
selectively revealed by scratching through a layer of pale slip applied onto Museum, inv. C.20-1970: 6, inv. 1967.137, 1967.138
the surface. Both birds are displayed in profile encircled respectively by https://collections.vam. and 1967.139: "Year
ac.uk/item/O122416/dish/
rings of regularly spaced chevron motifs and leafy branches. Bracketing (accessed 20th March 2022).
in Review 1967" CMA
the bird on the slightly smaller of the two vessels are a pair of long, wing- Bulletin (December, 1967),
1, Christoph Stiegemann p. 342.
like forms, which have been interpreted by modern scholars as depictions 3, The most recent and
ed., Byzanz - Das Licht
of a falconer’s lure.1 aus dem Osten: Kult und authoritative study of this
material is by Véronique 7, François 2015, p. 201 ff.
Alltag im Byzantinischen
In the Byzantine Empire, and even more so in the Islamic world, hunting Reich vom 4. bis 15. François, ‘De la cale à
Jahrhundert; Exh. Cat., l’atelier. La vaisselle 8, Cf. New York 1997,
falcons were a symbol of wealth and high status. The spectrum of designs byzantine de la donation no. 187, p. 265; For sherds
Paderborn, Erzbischöflichen
in which they are to be found on twelfth-century Byzantine pottery in Diözesanmuseum, 2001, Janet Zakos’ in Marielle of this type discovered
particular, offer a forceful testament both to the cultural reach of such no. 109, pp. 359-60; Helen Martiniani-Reber, De Rome in Corinth see especially
vessels during the period, and to the skill of the potters who were able to C. Evans and William D. à Byzance: Donation Janet Charles H. Morgan, The
Wixom, eds, The Glory of Zakos, Milan, 2015, pp. Byzantine Pottery. Corinth.
produce large numbers of beautifully worked slipware vessels destined for 201-272. Results of Excavations
Byzantium; Art and Culture
marine trade. of the Middle Byzantine Era, Conducted by the American
A.D. 843–1261, New York, 4, inv. 1967,1207.3: Ken School of Classical Studies
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dark, Byzantine Pottery, at Athens, Cambridge,
1997, no. 184, p. 262. Stroud, 2001, fig. 28. Mass., 1942.

42 43
9 A large section of a glazed dish emblazoned with a lion
passant among geometric lozenges

T
his fragment of a small, shallow dish, its slip-coated surface Byzantine Empire, most likely Constantinople
incised with the image of a strutting lion-like beast, is among the Late 13th century
most accomplished and sophisticated Byzantine sgraffito ceramics 14.5 x 13.5 x 4.5 cm; Incised slipware decorated with a
of the thirteenth century. The animal’s furry body, rib-like mane, and yellowish lead glaze over a cream-coloured slip on a red
sharp claws are meticulously drawn, with a level of care and sensitivity clay body. Reconstructed from five sections. A broad band of
that surpasses the vast majority of such wares. On either side of the over-glazed slip on the underside. The short cylindrical foot
unglazed. Three tripod scars on the animal’s body.
animal’s head, diamond-shaped lozenges arranged on their points float
against a plain and airy background. A thicker gauge of utensil was used Provenance
to create two double-line borders encircling the vessel’s rim, with each Bonhams, London, Antiquities, 29th April 2009, lot 273
pair of lines separated by a running frieze of fine s-curl or wave motifs. (part)
During the firing process the coating glaze pooled thickly in the incised
areas of the design, and its resultant deep chocolate hue brilliantly utilised
to throw the vessel’s pattern into full and legible relief.

A small number of vessels characterised like our fragment by their

orange-hued glaze, delicate sgraffito designs, and red clay bodies have
survived with find spots across the Byzantine Empire. Most scholars
concur that they were probably the product of kiln sites in Thessaloniki,
but it is clear that they enjoyed wide consumption and were traded by sea
throughout the twelfth to fourteenth centuries.1 A small fragment thought
to come from Constantinople and now in the musée du Louvre has a
similar language of decoration to that on our dish, and may have come
from an associated vessel either produced in the Byzantine capital itself
or shipped there from the Greek peninsula for local consumption (fig.

1, A. H. S. Megaw and
R. E. Jones ‘Byzantine
and Allied Pottery: A
Contribution by Chemical
Analysis to Problems of
Origin and Distribution’ in
The Annual of the British
School at Athens, Vol. 78
(1983), pp. 235-263.

2, For other closely

comparable fragments in
the Louvre collection also
attributed to Constantinople
see Véronique François, La
vaisselle de terre à Byzance:
Catalogue des collections
du musée du Louvre, Paris,
2017, no. 148, p. 212, no.
158, p. 215.

44 45
1).2 Other vessels of a broadly comparable type include the small bowl in
this catalogue (Cat. 10) as well as excavated vessels and sherds of similar
proportions and form in collections including the musée du Louvre, the
British Museum3 and an earlier example in the Argos Museum (fig. 2).4 It
must be said, however, that the vast majority of such survivals (as well as
the large corpus of wares discovered at other sites such as Corinth5) are of
a variant form of decoration, and that the vessel from which our fragment
originates would have stood out markedly both for the nature of its design
and the skill of its execution.
Fig. 1 (above)
Fragment of a bowl
Byzantine Empire,
Constantinople? Fig. 2 (below)
Late 13th or early 14th A slipware dish found at
century Argos
8.1 cm; earthenware with Byzantine Greece
lead glaze over a pale slip Second half 12th century
on red clay 21.3 cm (diameter) x 5 cm
Pairs, musée du Louvre, (depth)
Département des Arts de Argos, Archeological
l’Islam, inv. AA 327-31 Museum, inv. AA71

4, See also Dimitra

Papanikola-Bakirtzi ed.,
Byzantine Glazed Ceramics:
The Art of Sgraffito, Athens,
1999.

3, inv. OA+.15972. 5, Charles H. Morgan, The

Though far more plainly Byzantine Pottery. Corinth.
decorated, it is notable Results of Excavations
for its similar use of a Conducted by the American
thick-gauge implement for School of Classical Studies
drawing the concentric ring at Athens, Cambridge,
design around the rim. Mass., 1942.

46 47
10 A deep bowl depicting a bird eating a worm

T
his intact, deep-sided bowl is decorated in its central well with the Byzantine Empire, Thessaloniki
image of a bird incised into its pale coating layer of slip and turned Late 13th or early 14th century
in profile to our right. Its body is contoured with curved incisions 7.7 cm (height) x 15. 3 cm (diameter); Incised slipware
that help to pick out the markings on its breast, the form of its wing, and with deep yellow glaze over cream-coloured slip on a pale
a haystack of a tail. It holds in its beak a long wriggling line most likely red clay, raised on an everted foot. The underside partially
intended to represent a freshly plucked worm; it struts with head held glazed with a series of slip swags around the rim. Tripod
scars in three places in the central well. Some chips to the
high and an upright posture as if proud of its catch. An incised, double- glaze and clay in places around the rim.
line frame almost perfectly encircles the scene, with a further circular
pattern of three-lines incised immediately below the rim, in each case Provenance
created with a stylus or sharp implement pressed into the slip while the Collection of Claude and Françoise Bourelier
vessel was still turning on the wheel. The outside is lead glazed over a
rapidly applied series of slip ‘drips’ or arcs.

A number of both intact vessels and sherds dateable to a period spanning

the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries have been discovered
at the Greek port city of Thessaloniki, which has led to the relatively
large corpus of vessels with similar motifs being associated with
local workshops and local Late Byzantine production there.1 Most are
far plainer than our example, often incorporating a simple design of
concentric rings (fig. 1), but a small number of similarly proportioned
vessels also display inscribed images of birds either eating worms or
touching their beaks to leaf sprays and cypress tree motifs (fig. 2).2
Thessaloniki wares tend to have in common their striking use of a brick-
red clay and a pale slip, the latter almost always covered by a warm,
golden-hued glaze. Nevertheless, a concurrent trend for worm-eating
bird designs developed in Cypriot pottery-producing centres during the
same period3, suggesting close commercial and aesthetic links between Fig. 1 (above) Fig. 2 (below)
Bowl inscribed with Bowl with a bird
Byzantine wares of the Greek lands, and their counterparts in the eastern
concentric rings Thessaloniki
Mediterranean. Found at Thessaloniki late 13th or early 14th
14th century century
London, British Museum, Thessaloniki, Museum of
inv. 1930,0418.1 Byzantine Culture

1, D. Papanikola-Bakirtzi, 3, Cf. an example of the

ed. Byzantine Glazed worm-eating bird type,
Ceramics: The Art embellished with splashed
green and brown decoration,
2, Cf. examples in the was discovered on Cyprus
Benaki Museum of Islamic and has been linked to a
Art, Athens; Helen Philon, local kiln site: Paphos,
Early Islamic Ceramcs, Archaeological Museum,
Athens, 1980. inv. 2577-107.

48 49
50 51
11 A footed cup with a striding figure

A
footed drinking cup with a concave central bowl and a tall, Cyprus, perhaps Lapithos
slightly inward sloping collar. Its design of a figure walking in 15th century
profile to our right, framed on either side by corkscrew forms 15.5 cm (diameter) x 9.1 cm (height); Incised slipware
enclosing long, straight lines, is incised into the pale slip using the decorated with copper green and manganese brown glazes
sgraffito method. Green and brown glazes enliven the surface as if over a cream-coloured slip on a pale pink clay. The foot
splashed at speed, though their pooling swathes of colour have a carefully everted. The collar of the vessel, the feet and right-hand side
of the figure, and parts of their hair restored.
controlled sense of balance and rhythm.
Provenance
Cyprus was conquered by Crusaders in 1191. Over the course of the next Bonhams, London, Antiquities, 29th April 2009, lot 274
four centuries the island rose to become the most important commercial (part)
centre in the entire eastern Mediterranean basin. It acted as a gatekeeper
between Italy, Greece, north Africa, and the Iberian peninsula to the west,
and the countries of the Levant sprawling around the Mediterranean
coastline to the east. It was during this period that the production of
ceramics intended for use at the table flourished, supplying not just the
island’s local demand but also a broad trading network that encompassed
countries much further afield. Its principal centres of production were at
Lemba, near Paphos in the south west, and at Lapithos, in the district of
Kyrenia on the north coast, although some evidence has also been found
to suggest that there was more limited production near Famagusta as well.
Designs and techniques varied only subtly in each centre, and a fairly
restricted lexicon of forms and styles remained in use for centuries, as is
evidenced by the later, sixteenth-century jug in this catalogue (Cat. 13).

Though Cypriot vessels are marked by their lively use of coloured

glazes and their graphic, essentialized figurative decoration, they do in
fact share a number of key features with pottery produced elsewhere
in the Byzantine Empire, as well as taking inspiration from what is
typically described as ‘Crusader pottery’ made in Syria and Palestine.
The decoration of our vessel, with its spirited figure portrayed in an
angular, striding motion, and wearing a large panelled dress embellished
with a helicoidal design, accords closely with similar vessels dated to the
fifteenth century.1

1, Demetra Papanikola-
Bakirtzi, Colours of
Medieval Cyprus through
the Ceramic Collection
of the Leventis Municipal
Museum of Nicosia,
Nicosia, 2012 ed., nos. 12,
p. 62, and 15, p. 65.

52 53
12 A sgraffito-decorated cup with a ship at sail

T
he green-tinted glaze, intimate proportions, and tightly closed form Cyprus
of this bowl, with its deep, inward curling rim, are characteristic Early 15th century
13.3 cm (diameter) x 6.5 cm (height); Incised slipware
features of Cypriot wares produced during the fourteenth and decorated with a green-tinted lead glaze and splashes of
early fifteenth centuries (fig. 1).1 However, despite the industrial scale of darker green glaze over a pale slip on a pinkish clay body.
marine trade in Cypriot ceramics during the Middle Ages, its iconography With a stout cylindrical footring. Some splashes of green
of a ship at full sail, inscribed using the traditional Byzantine sgraffito glaze around the rim on the exterior, the underside otherwise
unglazed. Restoration to parts of the rim.
method into its pale slip, is almost unique.2 It takes the form of a
lateen-rigged sailing ship with a stern-hung rudder, of the type that was Provenance
commonly used in both fishing and the transport of goods during the Private collection, London, purchased from Axia Gallery
later Middle Ages, and is analogous in conception both to contemporary 24th February 1977
marine graffiti3, and to the depiction of such craft on other forms of Published
European pottery of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (fig. 2).4 Across Dragomir Garbov and Kroum Batchvarov, ‘Served on
the corpus of incised Cypriot ceramics, this is nonetheless exceptional. a Plate: A Late Medieval Ceramic Vessel with Sgraffito
Decoration of a Sailing Ship from the Ropotamo Underwater
Excavations, Black Sea, Bulgaria’ in Heritage, No. 5 (2022),
pp. 170-191, p. 178, fig. 8 [as comparison to a vessel with
the same iconography]

Fig. 1 (above)
Sgraffito-decorated cup
Lusignan Cyprus
Late 14th or early 15th century
12 cm (diameter) x 5.4 cm
(height); Slipware decorated
with a green-tinted glaze
Paris, musée du Louvre,
1, Véronique François, La Département des Arts de
vaisselle de terre à Byzance: l’Islam, inv. MAO 449-315
Catalogue des collections
du musée du Louvre, Paris,
2017, p. 265. 3, See most recently
Garbov and Batchvarov
2, Dragomir Garbov 2022, pp. 170-191. Fig. 2 (right)
and Kroum Batchvarov, Socarrat tile with a ship in
‘Served on a Plate: A Late 4, Cf. also an almost full sail
Medieval Ceramic Vessel identically rendered craft Spain, Valencia, Paterna
with Sgraffito Decoration on a Valencian lustred bowl 15th century
of a Sailing Ship from the of c. 1450-75, illustrated in 41 x 33.5cm, fired
Ropotamo Underwater Mallorca i el comerç de la earthenware
Excavations, Black Sea, ceràmica a la Mediterrània, Madrid, Museo
Bulgaria’ in Heritage, No. 5 Exh. Cat., Palma, 1998, no. Arqueológico Nacional,
(2022), pp. 170-191, p. 177. 51, p. 109. inv. no. 60399

54 55
13 A bulbous jug incised with a striding figure

56 57
T
his stoutly potted jug is a spirited example of the rich legacy Cyprus, probably Lapithos
and longevity of the Byzantine Cypriot pottery tradition, which Late 15th or early 16th century
continued well after the island fell to the Venetians in the late 21.2 cm (height) x 13.5 cm (width) x 14.5 cm (depth including
fifteenth century. Its decoration consists of a covering of slip incised on handle); Incised slipware decorated with copper green glaze
either side of the body with two figures, their ornately clad anatomies over a cream-coloured slip on a pale pink clay. Glaze losses
depicted frontally but their heads turned in profile and treated with an to one side of the body. A thick strap handle connecting the
neck to the shoulder of the body.
almost caricaturist approach. Punctuating the space between them is
a large flowerhead motif highlighted with green and encircled by an Provenance
undulating border alongside a smaller, quadrilobe knot motif of a type Bonhams, London, Antiquities, 29th April 2009, lot 273 (part)
that can be found on Byzantine vessels from the twelfth century on.1
Bands of zigzag decoration encircle the vessel’s rim and the base of
the neck on either side of a delicate vine tendril sprouting leaves in
alternating directions.

The unique and vivid language of Cypriot pottery hardly changed

during the centuries of Frankish rule between 1192 and 1489, and it
was only when the island came under Venetian control at the turn of the
sixteenth century that the largescale production of wares destined for
trade across the Adriatic waned and, finally, were brought to a standstill.
Late-stage vessels like our jug are characterised by a new spareness of
design, with decorative embellishment reduced to almost impossibly fine
outlines and pigmented glazes stripped back to a restrained monochrome
applied in patterns dashed with incredible speed and economy.2 Despite
four centuries of intevening time, jugs like ours are the rich heirs of a
decorative tradition established much earlier on the thirteenth-century
Crusader pottery made in the Byzantine port of Antioch, and known Fig. 1 (above)
today as 'Port Saint Symeon ware'. Bowl with a figure in
elaborate costume
Cyprus
The ornately dressed figures with panelled dresses shown dancing on 15th or 16th century
either side of the central rosette on the present vessel show the extent to 13 cm (diameter) x 5 cm
which Cypriot idioms evolved away from the broad and slanting figure (depth)
University of St Andrews,
type represented by the earlier footed cup in this catalogue (see Cat. 11) Bridges Collection, inv.
and instead towards a rounded and finely outlined variant, a type that can HC1994.3(18)
also be found on other forms of tableware surviving from the period (fig.
1).3 It has been argued that such wares were predominantly produced
at Lapithos on the north coast of the island, a pottery-producing town
whose kilns seem to have remained in full swing longer than those at
other Cypriot sites.

1, Charles H. Morgan, The

Byzantine Pottery. Corinth.
Results of Excavations
Conducted by the American
School of Classical Studies
at Athens, Cambridge,
Mass., 1942, p. 107.

2, Cf. footed bowls of this

type dated to the late 15th
and early 16th centuries
in Leventis Municipal
Museum, Nicosia, 3, Cf. a related variant
illustrated in Demetra also dated to the sixteenth
Papanikola-Bakirtzi, century, illustrated by
Colours of Medieval Cyprus Demetra Papanikola-
through the Ceramic Bakirtzi in Chypre: entre
Collection of the Leventis Byzance et l’Occident
Municipal Museum of IVe-XVIe siècle, Exh. Cat.,
Nicosia, Nicosia, 2012 ed., Paris, musée du Louvre,
nos. 93-4, p. 147. 2012, no. 152, pp. 324-5.

58 59
 Spain

60 61
14 A massive presentation bowl decorated with palmettes

T
hree purple-brown pineapple heads or palmettes pierced by Spain, Valencia, probably Paterna
c. 1300-1350
swirling stems and interspersed with flowering green reeds
punctuate the capacious, creamy tin-glazed interior of this massive 42.4 cm (diameter at rim) x 17.8 cm (height); Tin-glazed
serving bowl. Just below the rim a thin green band encloses the design, earthenware with copper green and manganese brown
while the rim itself, which rounds out slightly to offer ease of handling decoration on a buff-coloured clay, raised on a short,
bulbous foot ring with subtle faceting to the outer corner.
for the carrier, is decorated with a series of tapered diagonal hatch marks, Splashes of tin glaze on the underside. Some minor losses
applied with great speed and a loaded brush using the deep purple brown and abrasion to the glaze around the rim and in the central
of manganese pigment. The underside of the bowl is unglazed, and retains well, otherwise miraculously well preserved.
the highly textured, spiralling marks left in the clay when it was thrown
Provenance
on the wheel. With Antiquariat Elvira Tasbach;
Private collection, England, acquired from the above March
The production of purple-and-green ware was a Mediterranean 2013
phenomenon, but one that manifested itself in regions governed by
Islamic overlords – lands such as the Maghreb, Andalucia, Portugal and
Sicily, and from the late twelfth century onwards southern Italy, France
and Spain, where it found its unrivalled efflorescence in Paterna, Teruel
and Catalonia.1 The deep, conical form of this massive presentation bowl
(which far surpasses the usual small-scale tableware and preparation
utensils typically representing its type in museum collections today), is
descended from Islamic wares brought to Spain during Arab rule over the
peninsula in the early Middle Ages, and retained by the Muslim potters
of Málaga working for the Nasrid court.2 Just as indebted to the pottery
workshops of Málaga is the radial composition of its embellishment,
in which the three focal pineapple heads or palmettes are divided by
radially-anchored green lines which meet at the centre of the well.3

The aesthetic influence of the Nasrid-ruled workshops of Málaga spread

north in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, taken by the many potters
who resettled in the towns of Manises and Paterna, two important satellite
towns of one of Spain’s key trading ports, the Christian-ruled city of
Valencia. In Paterna the striking Málagan palette of black and green,

1, Anthony Ray, Spanish

Pottery 1248-1898, London,
2000, pp. 41-4.

2, Cf. a fifteenth-century
Málaga-made bowl now
in the Victoria & Albert
Museum, illustrated in Balbina
Martínez Caviró, Cerámica
Hispanomusulmana: Andalusí
y Mudéjar, Madrid, 1991,
p. 84.

3, Jaume Coll Conesa,

‘Propuestra de seriación y
cronología de las producciones
cerámicas mudéjares del Reino
de Valencia’, in En torno a
la cerámica medieval de los
siglos VIII-XV. Actas del XVLL
Congreso de la Asociación
de Ceramología (December
2020), p. 196; Josefa
Pascual and Javier Martí, La
cerámica verde-manganeso
bajomedieval valenciana,
Valencia, Ayuntamiento de
Valencia, 1986.

62 63
obtained from manganese and copper glazes, gave the town a unique
artistic idiom which changed little over the subsequent centuries.4 It is to
this pottery producing centre that our decorated bowl can be attributed,
since several of its motifs (and particularly the diagonal hatchings
encircling its rim) compare closely with earthenware vessels and shards
localised by find spot or provenance to that town. A number of smaller
and less elaborately decorated Paterna-made bowls or escudelles survive
which incorporate similar spiked radial motifs (fig. 1), while a rare few
of larger size have comparable freeform palmette designs separated by
copper framing elements or sprouting reeds (fig. 2). Other Paterna wares
of monumental size offer context to a presentation bowl of this scale
(fig. 3), and in the Paterna museum there is a single surviving bowl with
almost identical decoration to ours except for the omission of the swirling
palmettes or pineapple heads.5 The forceful copper green and manganese
brown decoration of our bowl places its likely date of creation in the
first half of the fourteenth century, in line with other early purple-and-
green wares excavated from Paterna’s kiln sites or preserved in museum Fig. 1 (above) Fig. 2 (below)
collections today.6 Small bowl with a coat A bowl with Persian palmettes
of arms among radial Spain, Valencia, Paterna
decoration 14th century
Spain, Paterna 25 cm (diameter) x 10.5
c. 1350 cm (height); Tin-glazed
Tin-glazed earthenware earthenware with manganese
with manganese and copper and copper decoration
decoration Barcelona, Museu de
Museo Municipal de Ceramicà, inv. 18960
Algeciras

Fig. 3 (left)
Deep basin
Spain, Valencia, Paterna
14th century
30 cm (diameter) x 14
cm (height); tin-glazed
earthenware with
manganese and copper
decoration
Paterna, Museu Municipal 5, Jaume Coll Conesa,
de Ceramicà ‘Propuestra de seriación
y cronología de las
producciones cerámicas
mudéjares del Reino de
Valencia’, in En torno a
la cerámica medieval de
los siglos VIII-XV. Actas
del XVLL Congreso de la
Asociación de Ceramología
(December 2020), p. 193
fig. 1.7.

4, M. Mesquida, La 6, Mallorca I el comerç

cerámica de Paterna: de la ceràmica a la
Reflejos del Mediterráneo, Mediterrània, Exh. Cat.,
Valencia, 2002. Palma, 1998, p. 104.

64 65
15 A serving bowl decorated with Alafia motifs and palmette
sprays
T
his small serving dish, or scodella, fits perfectly into the cupped Spain, Valencia, probably Manises
c. 1400-1450
palms of two hands. The cusped and pointed handles which extend
horizontally from either side of its rim would have helped its 5.5 cm (height) x 20.2 cm (diameter including handles);
bearer grip the vessel with their thumbs as it was being used, passed, and Tin-glazed earthenware with cobalt blue decoration on a
tilted. Its monochromatic decoration of cobalt blue over a white tin glaze, pale buff-coloured body. The underside also tin-glazed. The
vessel reconstructed from three large fragments. Two small
unusual for this form of dish, consists of a single line of repeating Alafia sections of the rim restored.
motifs (a bastardised version of the Arabic for ‘health and happiness’)
running right the way through its central axis from handle to handle. Each Provenance
Alafia is boxed into place by simple single-line borders, and above and Private collection, Barcelona, until 2010;
With Pierre-Richard Royer, Paris, until 2012
below by florid palmette sprays. A fine single band of blue encircles the
inside of the rim, and two heart-shaped motifs on each handle extend and
echo their cusped outlines.

Fig. 1 (left)
Lustred albarello with
palmette sprays
Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1400-1425
39 cm (height) x 14.5 cm
(diameter); tin-glazed
earthenware with copper
lustre and cobalt blue
decoration
Paris, musée de Cluny, inv.
CL2119

Fig. 2 (below)
Lustred dish with Alafia
motifs and palmette sprays
Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1400-1425
Tin-glazed earthenware
with copper lustre and
cobalt blue decoration
Paris, musée du Louvre,
inv. OA6742
The intimately-scaled scodella format became a ubiquitous sight in
the potteries of post-medieval Spain, but our example is one of a small
handful to have survived from the first half of the fifteenth century when
such vessels were only beginning to spread in popularity. It was most
likely created in a Manises workshop by the same potters responsible for
the more elaborate and richly decorated lustred vessels of this period that
have become so highly prized among modern collectors and museums.
Examples including albarelli and deep-sided dishes now split between
institutional collections in London, Paris, Sèvres, Madrid and New York
(among others) display the same lexicon of Alafia symbols and palmette
motifs and, like our humbler bowl, can be dated to the first half of the
fifteenth century on the basis of their stylistic and technical similarities to
stratigraphically dated archeological findspots (figs. 1-2).1

1, Perhaps the closest analogue for our vessel is a larger

dish in the Palacio Nacional, Barcelona, which was in all
probability made by the same potter; Alan Caiger-Smith,
Tin-Glaze Pottery in Europe and the Islamic World: The
Tradition of 1000 Years in Maiolica, Faience & Delftware,
London, 1973, fig. 43. Cf. also a group of similarly
decorated fragments excavated at Poblet and dated to
c. 1400-1450, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum,
illustrated in Anthony Ray, Spanish Pottery 1248-1898,
London, 2000, p. 48, especially no. 103.

66 67
16 An early Hispano-Moresque albarello with
geometric and 'pseudo-Kufic' decoration
T
his imposing and perfectly fired cylindrical albarello belongs to a Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1400-1430
highly prized group of early fifteenth-century Hispano-Moresque
lustrewares that are believed to have been produced in the workshops 28.5 cm (height) x 11.8 cm (diameter); Tin-glazed
of Manises, the foremost pottery-producing satellite town of Valencia, earthenware with copper lustre and cobalt blue decoration
close to Spain’s eastern seaboard. They are celebrated for their unique on a buff-coloured clay. A slightly waisted body raised on an
everted foot, with a tall neck and subtly flanged rim. Some
cultural hybridity and their status as symbols of exchange between Muslim
small chips to the glaze around the rim and at the bottom of
potters and the complex network of international trade (dominated by the interior, a single larger chip to the glaze and body near
Christian centres which relied on the Mediterranean basin as their primary the foot. The glaze consistently fired and excellently well
conduit) they helped to fuel. This extremely refined example is formed preserved.
with a tall neck, slanting shoulder, slightly waisted form and short foot
Provenance
rim, decorated in blue and copper-lustre with seven alternating geometric Paul Peyta collection, Biarritz, by 1929;
horizontal bands, including abstracted alafia symbols alternated with His sale, The Peyta Collection of Hispano-Moresque, Italian,
panels of lustre scrollwork and a central band of trellis-work. A single band and Asiatic pottery, Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co, 1935;
William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951);
decorated with abstracted ‘pseudo-Kufic’ motifs in cobalt blue alternating
His sale, Hammer Galleries, New York, 1941, no. 1242-3;
with fine grills and spirals of copper lustre encircles the body immediately Where purchased for Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans
below the shoulder. (1920-2012);
Property of The Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans
Foundation;
On loan to the Duke University Museum of Art, 1956-2020

Published
Art Objects and Furnishings from the William Randolph
Hearst Collection, Sale cat., New York, Gimbel Brothers,
1941, p. 315.

A note on the albarello’s recent history

Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans (1920-2012) was an
American philanthropist, local and state-wide leader,
and patron of the arts. A member of the Duke University
Board of Trustees and the first female chairman of The
Duke Endowment, she helped guide these institutions
during five decades of service. In the 1960s she helped
found the North Carolina School of the Arts, the USA’s
first public conservatory, and in her mother's memory,
created The Mary Duke Biddle Gallery for the Blind at the
North Carolina Museum of Art. In the 1940s she acquired
a group of Hispano-Moresque ceramics of the first rank,
several of which had come from a series of well-publicised
sales of the collections amassed by the newspaper tycoon
William Randolph Hearst. Among the albarelli with Hearst
provenance that Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans purchased
at the time, probably through or with the help of the dealer
Raphael Stora, were this fabulous early example and the
following albarello in this catalogue (Cat. 17), which it has
now come to light had previously been in the collections of
Paul Tachard in Paris, and Paul Peyta in Biarritz (fig. 4).1

3, For more on the

Despujol dish see Anne
Wilson Frothingham,
Lusterware of Spain, New
York, 1951, p. 98 ff.

4, See also Josep A. Cerdà

i Mellado, La Loza Dorada 1, I am sincerely grateful
de la Colección Mascort, to Dr Lyle Humphrey for
Torroella de Montgrí, 2011, bringing the Peyta collection
no. 88, p. 167. to my attention.

68 69
In the fourteenth-century, the town of Malaga in south-eastern Spain
became widely celebrated for earthenware decorated with what we now
describe as ‘gold lustre’. The technique had in fact been perfected centuries
earlier in the Near East and had probably been transmitted to Spain via
potters travelling up from Egypt. A number of Moorish potters are known
to have moved north to settle near Valencia, which came under Christian
rule in 1232 and from then on imposed increasingly strict regulations
concerning the professions Muslim artisans could occupy. By around 1400
the kilns these master potters controlled were able to produce a superb
and consistent lustreware, shimmering with its distinctive metallic sheen.
Early wares such as the present example and the family to which it belongs
continued the strongly arabesque style of Malaga, with quasi-Arabic
inscriptions and calligraphic details in a rich, dazzling blue obtained from
glazes using imported cobalt.2
Fig. 1 Fig. 2
The trellis-work panels encircling the centre of this vessel appear on a A Hispano-Moresque albarello A Hispano-Moresque albarello
number of drug jars, as does the al-afiya (also known as alafia) design Spain, Valencia, Manises Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1400-1430 c. 1400-1430
which is here reflected in a calligraphic motif consisting of a 'circumflex 28.5 cm (height) x 13 cm 31.5 cm (height); Tin-glazed
accent' over an 'alpha' and which has variously been interpreted as the (diameter); Tin-glazed earthenware with copper
Arabic phrase for 'good health’, ‘health and happiness’, and a degenerate earthenware with copper lustre lustre and cobalt blue
form of the Arabic word for ‘grace’.3 However, the combination of both and cobalt blue New York, Metropolitan
London, Victoria and Albert Museum of Art, inv. 56.171.147
features together with the discrete panels of ‘pseudo-Kufic’ lettering, draws Museum, inv. 46-1907
particular analogies to another albarello, also attributed to the early fifteenth
century and now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
(fig. 1). Little attention has been paid to the group to which they belong, but
it is clear from their identical sizes that they must have been produced not
just at the same time by the same potters, but also it would seem as part of
a single large pharmacy commission. Other related examples are preserved
in the British Museum (inv. 1878,1230.332) and the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York (fig. 2). A charger decorated with a similar division of
bands, including alternating alafia and stylised Kufic script around the rim,
is in the Wallace Collection in London, while a deep-sided dish, which like
the V&A and MET albarelli is likely to have been produced in the same
workshop as the jar under discussion, is now in the David Collection in
Copenhagen (fig. 3).4 The whole family of vessels to which our albarello
and these examples all belong has historically been dated to the first half
of the fifteenth century, but the surrounding scholarship is now starting to
favour a more refined date range of around 1400-1430.

Fig. 3
A Hispano-Moresque earthenware dish
Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1400-1450
8 cm (height) x 35 cm (diameter); Tin-glazed
earthenware with copper lustre and cobalt
blue
Copenhagen, David Collection, inv. 32/2005

3, For differing
2, For a discussion of the interpretations see Anthony
family of wares to which our Ray, Spanish Pottery
example belongs see Balbina 1248-1898, London, V&A
Martínez Caviró, Cerámica Publications, 2000, p. 401;
Hispanomusulmana: Andalusí and Timothy B. Husband,
y Mudéjar, Madrid, 1991, ‘Valencian Lusterware of
p. 141 ff.; Xavier Dectot, the Fifteenth Century: Notes
Céramiques hispaniques and Documents.’ in The 4, A.V.B. Norman, Wallace
(XIIe-XVIIIe siècle), Paris: Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection Catalogue Fig. 4
Musée National du Moyen Bulletin, n.s., Vol. 29, No. 1 of Ceramics 1: Pottery, Our albarello (top left) as part of a grouping of early Hispano-Moresque wares in the Peyta collection in Biarritz, 1929
Âge - Thermes et Hôtel de (Summer 1970), pp. 20-32, Maiolica, Faience, Stoneware,
Cluny, 2007. pp. 38–39. p. 22. London, 1976, p. 40ff.

70 71
17 An early Hispano-Moresque albarello with vine
and feather decoration
The juxtaposition of cobalt blue and copper lustre decoration on this
Hispano-Moresque albarello must have been meticulously considered
Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1400-1430

before its execution, since its entire design is marked by a harmonious 28.5 cm (height) x 12 cm (diameter); Tin-glazed
and consistent visual weighting from top to bottom. Around the neck is earthenware with copper lustre and cobalt blue decoration
a single broad band of intertwined, calligraphic arches, hooks and flicks on a buff-coloured clay. A slightly waisted body raised on
a narrow, everted foot, with a tall neck and flanged rim.
executed in cobalt glaze and interspersed with delicate lustred swirls.
Losses to the glaze around the rim, shoulder, lower body,
The latter continue on the shallow slope of the shoulder, and around the and foot ring. The glaze consistently fired and otherwise
lower body, where they are used to fill the negative space left by a series very well preserved.
of inverted arch or fleur-de-lis motifs. Around the upper section of the
Provenance
body is a tall band of decoration consisting of a series of columns hatched
Paul Tachard collection, Paris;
in diagonal strokes of copper lustre imitating the fronds of feathers, and His sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 18th March 1912, lot 5;
alternating with slender cobalt blue chain links formed as strung, heart- Paul Peyta collection, Biarritz, by 1929 (see fig. 1);
shaped beads or leaves. His sale, The Peyta Collection of Hispano-Moresque, Italian,
and Asiatic pottery, Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co, New
York, 1935;
Hispano-Moresque ceramics were so costly to produce that on the whole William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951);
only a tiny portion of society would have had regular personal access His sale, Hammer Galleries, New York, 1941, no. 1242-4;
to them in any form, and yet this rule of privilege was in fact broken in Probably purchased by Raphael Stora and sold to Mary
Duke Biddle Trent Semans (1920-2012), before 1948;
the public sphere, since albarelli, the collective name typically used to
Property of The Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans
describe these types of slender, lidless storage jars, were primarily used in Foundation;
apothecary shops, one of the rare places ‘where men of all classes could On loan to the Duke University Museum of Art, 1956-2020
meet as intellectual equals’.1 As with its counterpart in this catalogue
Published
(Cat. 16), this fabulously decorated example is one of a tiny handful of
Catalogue des anciennes faïences hispano-mauresques, plat
surviving albarelli attributed almost unanimously across the scholarship important à reflets métalliques, en faïences de Manisses, XIV
on the field to the workshops of Manises, Valencia’s foremost pottery- siècle, composant la collection de M. Paul Tachard, Sale
producing town during the Middle Ages. It belongs to an early family of Cat., Paris, 1912, p. 11, ill.
wares that really only started to emerge to scholars as a result of public
Art Objects and Furnishings from the William Randolph
auctions in the twentieth century (this example came to light when it was Hearst Collection, Sale cat., New York, Gimbel Brothers,
sold from the collection of the Parisian collector Paul Tachard in 1912). 1941, p. 315.
The surviving group has quite rightly become widely celebrated not only
for its artistic refinement but also for its unique cultural hybridity, its
decorative language exemplifying the complex and sophisticated arena of
cultural exchange that existed between Muslim potters and the Christian-
dominated Mediterranean trade networks they helped to fuel.

1, Caroline Campbell ‘The

Place of Maiolica’, in Elisa
Sani and J. v. G. Mallet,
Maiolica in Italy and beyond:
Papers of a Symposium Held
at Oxford in Celebration of
Timothy Wilson’s Catalogue
of Maiolica in the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, 2021, pp.
11-25, p. 19.

72 73
Fig. 1
Our albarello (top right) as part of a grouping of early Hispano-Moresque wares in the Peyta collection in Biarritz, 1929

74 75
Several of the motifs used in the decoration of this drug jar can be found
on a handful of related lustrewares of varying shapes and forms now in
museum collections around the world. Key sister-pieces to our jar (and
which must surely come from the same workshop) include a deep dish
with the arms of the Despujol2 family of Catalonia (fig. 2), a pitcher
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (fig. 3), and a pair of
albarelli of almost identical size to ours, all three of which are preserved
in the collection of the Hispanic Society of America (fig. 4). An albarello
in the British Museum in London decorated with a variant arrangement
of almost all of the same motifs must surely have been produced by our
potter (fig. 5). Though it is fractionally larger than our example, several
of the other related vessels are of identical size, which suggests that they
were made as part of the same pharmacy commission. Other related
examples are preserved in the National Archaeological Museum and the Fig. 2
Instituto Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid, the Museo de Cerámica in Deep dish with the arms of the Despujol family
Barcelona and the Metropolitan Museum.3 Spain, Valencia, Manises
Late 14th or early 15th century
48.2 cm (diam.); Tin-glazed earthenware with
copper lustre and cobalt blue
New York, Hispanic Society of America, inv.
E634

Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5

A Hispano-Moresque pitcher A Hispano-Moresque albarello A Hispano-Moresque albarello
Spain, Valencia, Manises Spain, Valencia, Manises Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1430 c. 1400-1430 c. 1400-1430
46.7 x 22.9 cm; Tin-glazed earthenware 29.7 cm (height); Tin-glazed earthenware 32 cm (height); Tin-glazed earthenware 2, For differing
with copper lustre and cobalt blue with copper lustre and cobalt blue with copper lustre and cobalt blue interpretations see Anthony
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Hispanic Society of America, London, British Museum, inv. G.557 Ray, Spanish Pottery
inv. 56.171.146 inv. E574 1248-1898, London, V&A
Publications, 2000, p. 401;
3, Balbina Martínez Caviró, and The Metropolitan
Cerámica Hispanomusulmana: Museum of Art Bulletin,
Andalusí y Mudéjar, Madrid, New Series, Vol. 29, No. 1
1991, pp. 142-3; See also In the fourteenth-century, the town of Málaga in south-eastern (Summer, 1970), pp. 20-32,
2, For the Despujol Josep A. Cerdà i Mellado, La Spain became widely celebrated for earthenware decorated with what p. 22.
dish see Anne Wilson Loza Dorada de la Colección we now describe as ‘gold’ or ‘copper lustre’. The technique had in fact
Frothingham, Lusterware Mascort, Torroella de Montgrí,
of Spain, New York, 1951, 2011, no. 88, p. 167; the New been perfected centuries earlier in the Near East and had probably been
p. 98 ff. York albarello is inv. 56.171.147.

76 77
18 An early Hispano-Moresque four-handled vase with
geometric and pseudo-Kufic decoration
U
ndoubtedly produced by the same potters responsible for the Spain, Valencia, Manises
two albarelli in this catalogue (Cats. 16 and 17) the form of this c. 1400-1430
impressive lustred vase draws heavily on glass mosque lamps. 18.5 cm (height) x 22 cm (diameter at centre); Tin-glazed
It is masterfully potted, with a rotund, near-spherical body supporting a earthenware with copper lustre and cobalt blue glazes.
tall conical neck, and with four large handles attached in an equidistant The vessel is remarkably well preserved. The foot has been
arrangement around its circumference. It is covered in a bright off-white broken and replaced. Additionally, there are some hairline
cracks to the body, along with abrasion and flake losses to
tin glaze and heavily ornamented using the characteristic Valencian the glaze around the rim and foot as well as in a few places
palette of copper lustre and cobalt blue. The vessel’s decorative scheme on the bodies and handles, and to the interior (as a result of
consists of dense patterns of arabesque, chevron, grid- and penwork continued use). One larger chip to the rim.
ornament separated by the handles into four main panels but united above
Provenance
and below the handles by bands of continuous fish-bone decoration. The Collection of Otto Beit (1865-1930);
handles are all painted in solid bands of lustre. Further tin-glaze and French private collection until 2013
copper lustre decoration enlivens the interior of the neck.

This magnificent vessel belongs to an extremely rare class of four-

handled vase of which only a handful of other examples are known,
most being in the collection of the British Museum in London (figs. 1-2).
For ease of reference, these vessels can be divided into two categories
based on their painted decoration; pseudo-Kufic (since short scrolls of
fictive Kufic script encircle the neck) and geometric (for the patterns
of diamonds and grids that embellish the neck and body). Despite their
differences however, the group of surviving vessels to which our example
belongs is likely to have been the output of a single workshop, since
the proportions and style of their profiles, the techniques by which their
handles are applied with faceted chasing to the clay, and the density and
weighting of lustre to cobalt decoration, are all very closely related. They
were almost certainly produced in the town of Manises, the foremost
pottery-producing satellite of Valencia close to Spain’s eastern seaboard.
Manises pottery of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is celebrated for
its unique cultural hybridity and its status as one of the most profound
symbols of exchange between Muslim artisans and the complex network
Fig. 1 (above) Fig. 2 (below)
of international trade (dominated by Christian centres which relied on the
Four-handled vase with Four-handled vase with
Mediterranean basin as their primary conduit) they helped to fuel. arabesque and geometric geometric decoration
decoration Spain, Valencia, Manises
Lustred ceramics strongly analogous to our vessel and similarly Spain, Valencia, Manises c. 1400-1425
associated with early fifteenth-century Manises workshops include a tall c. 1400-1425 16.5 cm (height) x 11.8
18 cm (height) x 14 cm (diam.); Tin-glazed
albarello now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 3),
cm (diam.); Tin-glazed earthenware with copper
and a group of albarelli, chargers, and four-handled vases whose lexicon earthenware with copper lustre and cobalt blue
of motifs concur with those on our vase (see examples at the musée du lustre and cobalt blue London, British Museum,
Cluny, inv. CL21120; the British Museum, inv. 1878,1230.332, as well London, British Museum, inv. G. 599
inv. G. 597
as inv. G.542 and G.557; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, inv.
487-1864, as well as C.123-1931; and the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan,
Madrid, inv. 179, 191, 200, and 232).

Fig. 3 (right)
Pharmacy jar or albarello
Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1400-1450
33.2 cm (height); Tin-glazed
earthenware with copper lustre
and cobalt blue
New York, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, inv. 17.190.826

78 79
80 81
19 A set of four Hispano-Moresque floor tiles depicting a
songbird, a falcon, a hare and a fox

T
he use of blue cobalt decoration on a ground of white tin in imitation Spain, Valencia, Manises or Paterna
c. 1425
of Iranian stonepaste and Chinese porcelain was a sea-change in the
history of European pottery, and it was felt first and keenest in the 11.5 x 11.5 cm (height x width). Depth varies from 1.8 to 2.4
kilns of Muslim Spain during the Middle Ages. During the fifteenth century, cm across all four tiles; Tin glazed earthenware with cobalt
trade in Valencian ceramics extended right across Europe, dominated by blue decoration on a pale buff-coloured clay. Chip losses
to the glaze in places, particularly around the perimeter of
the connecting force of the Mediterranean, which helped to fuel demand each tile. A larger loss to the upper right-hand corner of the
just as quickly as it promised to meet it. Records show that Valencian falcon tile.
wares were exported as far afield as England and Flanders in the west
to Venice, the Byzantine lands, and even the Baltic countries in the east. Provenance
Art market, Paris
The desirability of Manises and Paterna ceramics in particular, with their
rich, consistent blue decoration continued throughout Europe until the late
sixteenth century, being described in many places as "work of Valencia" or
"Mallorca" because of the origins of the seafarers who traded with it.

The lexicon of motifs used in the decoration of these four floor tiles situate
them firmly in a Valencian context, and undoubtedly in one of the foremost
workshops of Paterna or Manises, two closely situated and interlinked
pottery-producing centres close to the country’s Eastern seaboard; groups
of blue and white wares of a similar type have been found in waste pits in
both towns.1 Well published fragments of tiles and other ceramics on which
animals are depicted with similarly slender, willowy silhouettes against a
background design incorporating parsley leaves and Arabesque palmette
sprays include a small dish dated to the first half of the fifteenth century (fig.
1), and a fragment of a floor tile dated to the first quarter, and painted by an
artist working in close and sustained contact with the individual responsible
for ours.2

Fig. 1 (above)
Small dish with a hooked-
beaked bird
Valencia, Paterna or Manises
c. 1400-1450
25.2 cm (diameter) x 6.6
cm (height); Tin-glazed
earthenware with cobalt
blue decoration
London, Victoria and Albert
Museum, inv. C.51-1989

1, Anthony Ray, Spanish

Pottery 1248-1898, London,
2000, pp. 315, 320-21.

2, Ibid, no. 614, p. 315.

82 83
20 Four hexagonal floor tiles from the cell of
San Vicente Ferrer
T
hese four richly pigmented hexagonal floor tiles were made by a Spain, Valencia, probably Manises
group of highly skilled Manises potters for the cell of San Vicente c. 1425-1450
Ferrer (also known as Saint Vincent, c. 1350-1419), Valencia’s 10.5 cm (height) x 20.5 cm (length) x 2.6 cm (depth); Tin-
most famous and intensely venerated religious figure. He became a glazed earthenware with cobalt blue decoration on a pale
Dominican preacher at the age of eighteen and gained popularity in the pinkish clay. Thickly potted, with only minor abrasion to the
region for his missionary work, as well as his staunch support of the glaze, though chips dot the perimeter of each tile.
Avignonese antipope Clement VII during the papal schism of 1378-1417. Provenance
Following his death, Vicente’s cell in the Convent of Santo Domingo in With Bealu Galleries, Paris;
Valencia was converted into a chapel under the care of a confraternity Pierre Richard Royer, Paris, until 2012
who called themselves the ‘Hermandad de los Caballeros de la Celda’
(the Brotherhood of the Knights of the Cell), and under whose patronage
it was richly embellished.1 Perhaps shortly after San Vicente’s death, and
certainly by the middle of the fifteenth century, they had commissioned a
large set of these fabulous blue and white tiles to decorate the cell’s floor.
The overall design consisted of tessellating groups of four hexagonal tiles
arranged around a central square decorated with a rose.2 The resultant
rhythm and geometry of the design would have been similar to a similar
floor made by Manises potters for an Italian patron, of which a large
and well-preserved section is now in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los
Angeles (fig. 1).3 As with the Getty floor, each one of the hexagonal
tiles from San Vicente’s cell is adorned with a flying scroll on which
short mottos are inscribed. Three of the four mottos known to have been
used by the potters responsible for the Santo Domingo commission are
represented on our tile group; ‘bon regiment’ (a well-ordered life), ‘ab
sana pensa’ (with right thoughts), and ‘e ab saviesa’ (and with knowledge)
respectively.

In the nineteenth century San Vicente’s cell was redecorated and its
medieval floor tiles removed and dispersed shortly afterwards. They
are now split between a number of the world’s museums, including the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hispanic Society in New York, the
Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the
British Museum in London, the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid,
and the Museo Nacional de Cerámica in Valencia.4
Fig. 1 (above)
Tile floor
Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1425-1450
Overall dimensions 110
x 220 cm; tin-glazed
earthenware with cobalt
and manganese decoration
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty
Museum, inv. 84.DE.747
1, Anthony Ray, Spanish
Pottery 1248-1898, London,
2000, p. 317. An old label
attached to the underside of
one of the tiles corroborates
this provenance, and reads 3, Catherine Hess, Italian
“from the old Dominican Maiolica: Catalogue of the
convent of the city of Collections, J. Paul Getty
Valencia (today the Museum, Malibu, 1988, pp.
"Capitanía General", a 12-13.
military building)”.
4, Edwin Atlee Barber,
2, For a reconstruction Catalogue of Hispano-
of the design with a large Moresque pottery in the
group of these rose tiles collection of the Hispanic
see María Paz Soler Ferrer, Society of America, New
Historia se la Ceramica York, 1915, Cat. 130, pl.
Valenciana, Vol. II, LXXXVI, pp. 213-215;
Valencia, 1988, p. 213. Ray, 2000, p. 317.

84 85
21 A tile with a catapult motif, from the Palacio de
los Almunia, Valencia
T
his large, square floor tile was made as part of a commission for Spain, Valencia, probably Manises
the Palacio de los Almunia, a now-demolished house built in 1455 c. 1455
by the Valencian judge Bernardo Almunia and formerly located 13 x13 x 2.2 cm; Tin-glazed earthenware with cobalt blue
on the Calle Avellanas in Valencia. The inscription wrapped around the decoration on a whitish buff body. Some glaze losses (mainly
central motif of a catapult reads ‘lo guardo vostra virtut de mos merits’ around the edges of the tile), but otherwise excellently
(I guard your virtue by my merits). Emblems, mottoes and imprese preserved.
like these were developed by patrons right across Europe during the Provenance
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as a form of visual shorthand able to Made for the Palacio de los Almunia, Valencia;
communicate status and steadfastness of character. This was, in part, a Private collection, Valencia
response to the historic use of such forms at the royal courts, and they
were thus exploited for their ability to bestow anyone wealthy enough
to have or create an emblem of their own with the suggestion of having
right and title – things normally gained only through ancient and noble
lineage. Guilds, confraternities, and individuals all boasted their own
and used them as potent visual adverts; the frequent struggles for power
and influence between the upper echelons of Valencian society led to the
emergence of a number of these emblems, which were plastered across
commissions of all kinds but especially in architectural settings affiliated
with their owners. Despite their largely civilian identities, some of the
city’s social elite adopted the kinds of pseudo-militaristic imagery typified
by the catapult on our tile as an allusion to strength beyond mere words.

Only a small group of the original tiles made for the Palacio de los
Almunia have come down to us, and are today split between the world’s
museum collections, including the Museo Nacional de Cerámica (inv.
CE1/02259), which was established in the late 1940s to house the
collection of the great ceramics historian Manuel González Martí (1877-
1972).

86 87
22 A large lustreware charger emblazoned with 'IHS' among
parsley leaves and bryony flowers
T This magnificent charger is formed with shallow, conical sides entirely
covered in a basket- or trellis-work pattern of alternating bryony
Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1430-60

flowers and parsley leaves picked out in cobalt blue on a white ground and 43.5 cm diameter; tin-glazed earthenware on a buff-coloured
clay, with copper lustre and cobalt blue decoration. Some
interspersed with delicate vine tendrils in copper lustre. The sides of the
very small chips to the glaze around the rim and foot ring,
dish slope down into a large central roundel emblazoned with the sacred some rubbing and firing scars to the central well. A single
Christogram of the letters ‘ihs’ inscribed using copper lustre in ornate repaired break through the centre of the dish. The 'IHS' letter
textura quadrata letterforms and topped by a florid Arabesque curlicue that forms subtly strengthened in places where they have become
abraded. The dish pierced twice near the upper edge for
bisects the ascender of the central ‘h’. Further lustred vine tendrils project
suspension.
from the letterforms across the white background glaze. The reverse of the
dish is also embellished with lustred decoration, applied using a loaded Provenance
brush that the painter held in their hand while the dish was turned on the Fernandez collection, Paris;
George and Florence Blumenthal, New York, by 1926;
wheel, and slowly moved from the centre to the rim to create a single
Bequest of George Blumenthal to the Metropolitan Museum
continuous spiral design. of Art, 1941, inv. 41.100.308;
Collection of Paul W. Doll Jr. (1926-2020), acquired directly
from the museum by exchange in 2011

Published
Stella Rubenstein-Bloch, Catalogue of the Collection of
George and Florence Blumenthal, 1926, vol. III, pl. XXXIII.

The skill of the Moorish potters in medieval Spain was unrivalled in

fifteenth-century Europe. We still do not know how they managed to do
it, but the artists working in the Kingdom of Valencia during this period
successfully safeguarded the technique of producing copper lustre from
their competitors in other centres for over a century, such that Italian
potters throughout the 1400s attempted, and repeatedly failed, to master
the technique in their own workshops.1 Florentine potters seeing Valen-
cian ceramics imported in large numbers via the Arno river came closest
to copying the distinctive design that covers the front of our charger, a
pattern known to have been in use by 1427 when it appears in Italian
documents as 'fioralixi' ('fleur-de-lys'), but they were forced to settle on
an enriched antimony yellow glaze in imitation of the more highly prized 1, Marco Spallanzani,
copper sheen used by their Spanish rivals. Maioliche ispano-moresche
a Firenze nel Rinascimento,
Florence, 2006.

88 89
So revered was the Valencian potters’ ability to almost magically trans- Fig. 1
Valencian monogrammed
form raw materials into precious metallic surfaces, that contemporary lusterware charger with the
patrons and writers prized it as though it were gold; the Franciscan Friar head of John the Baptist
Franscec Eiximenes, in his 1383 treatise on civic duties, praised 'the The charger c. 1450, the
beauty of golden Manises wares, masterfully painted [...that] popes and head carved in 1500 by
Dries Holthuys
cardinals and princes of the world seek it specially and are amazed that Xanten, Cathedral Treasury
such an excellent and noble work can be made from earth'.2 The inclu-
sion of ‘popes and cardinals and princes’ in Eiximenes’ praise of Valen-
cian ceramics attests to their rarefied status as objects of extreme luxury
and expense. The European noble and religious elite commissioned sets of
Valencian table wares according to particular requirements. Our charger
would most likely have been produced either as the centrepiece of a larger Fig. 2
Hispano-Moresque
domestic commission, or just as plausibly for liturgical use, since its lusterware charger with the
sacred ‘ihs’ trigram would have been particularly suited to the symbolism ‘IHS’
of the Eucharist. Examples of Valencian chargers incorporating the same Spain, Valencia, probably
motif can still be found in religious settings, including in the treasury at Manises
c. 1430-60
Xanten where it has been in use as an altar object since at least 1500 (fig. tin-glazed earthenware with
1). Nevertheless, the fact that our vessel’s upper rim is pierced twice for copper lustre and cobalt
suspension via a rope or ribbon shows that it was also made to be hung for blue decoration
display, rather than put to service as a purely functional object. Paris, musée du Louvre, inv.
OA4032

Only a tiny handful of chargers comparable to this example in form and

decoration survive anywhere in the world. Examples closely matching
ours in both respects are preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York, the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, the British Museum in Lon-
don, and the Cluny and Louvre museums in Paris. Several of these are so
close in execution that they must have been produced in the same period
and artistic orbit as ours, and perhaps even by the same group of master Fig. 3 a & b
potter-painters (see figs. 2-3). Almost without exception, they incorporate Hispano-Moresque
the same large, shapely curlicue of lustre that bisects the ascender of the lusterware charger with the
central letter ‘h’. This motif, put to use within the Christian context of the ‘IHS’, detail of the front
and back, the latter showing
sacred trigram, has its roots in Arabic script introduced to Spain during the same continuous spiral
the long period of Islamic rule over the Iberian Peninsula, which lasted design as that on the reverse
until the Reconquista in 1492.3 Its complete integration into the aesthetic of our charger
repertoire of the Valencian potters speaks to the intensely complex and Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1430-60
dialogic relationship between the two cultures during the Middle Ages, 45 cm diameter; tin-glazed
and the influence it exerted on Spanish art right up until the close of the earthenware with copper
Middle Ages and beyond. lustre and cobalt blue
decoration
Paris, musée du Cluny, inv.
CL2090

2, Regiment de la cosa
publica, cited in G.J. de
Osma, Apuntes sobre
ceramica morisca. Textos
y documentos valencianos
no.1: La loza dorada de
manises en el año 1454 3, I am grateful to Marcus
(Cartas de la Reina de Fraser for his help exploring
Aragón a Don Pedro Boil), the origins of the motif in the
Madrid, 1906, p. 12. ornament of Muslim Spain.

90 91
23 A lustred charger with ribbed decoration

A
grand, relief-moulded charger decorated entirely in golden Spain, Valencia, Manises
copper lustre. At its centre is a shield-shaped heraldic escutcheon c. 1470-1500
emblazoned with a rampant goat. Spreading outwards from this
45.5 cm (diameter) x 6.5 cm (depth); Tin-glazed earthenware
central shield across the conical sides of the dish is a dense repeating with copper lustre decoration on a buff-coloured clay. A
pattern of ‘nail head’ or puntas de clavo ornament organized into radiating repaired break running across the middle of the charger,
rings and dotted here and there with occasional thistle-head motifs. A and a further much smaller hairline crack extending into the
relief-moulded pattern of long peta-like ribs, often described in Spanish by body from the rim near the 5 o’clock position. Abrasion to
the glaze layer along the ribbed mouldings and the rim of
the name cordoncillo after the slender catkin-like seed pods of the pepper the dish. Original suspension holes drilled near the top of
plant, extend like the spokes of a wheel from a central ring enclosing the rim, and a further suspension hole, non-original, drilled
the heraldic shield to the rim where they connect to one another with a through the body on the reverse face.
continuous series of bouncing arcs. The underside of the dish is painted
Provenance
with concentric rings punctuated at intervals by thicker bands. William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951);
Sotheby's New York, 5th December 1967, lot 205, 'The
Manises, a pottery-producing satellite town of Valencia near Spain’s Property of D. Ward Esq';
eastern seaboard, is responsible for many of the greatest lustred ceramics Private European collection
ever to have been produced in Europe. Its kilns were developed into
powerhouses of production by Muslim potters moving north from the
Nasrid court in the years after 1300, and over the course of the subsequent
two centuries it helped the region of Valencia dominate the international
market for luxury ceramics. Our large charger is a perfect example of
the high quality, ambitious scale, and extraordinary technical refinement
reached by the town’s community of potters, who despite having Muslim
identities were working in an increasingly Christian-dominated cultural
and political context. The family of wares to which our example belongs

92 93
has been dated by most modern scholars to the final decades of the
fifteenth century, one of the last great moments of innovation in Hispano-
moresque ceramics. Other examples with cordoncillo reliefs and the
same lexicon of painted motifs can be found in a number of the world’s
museum collections, with particularly close analogs in the musée de
Cluny in Paris (fig. 1).1 Alongside the discovery of fragments in local
kiln sites, a charger in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
decorated with the coat of arms of the Buyl family, lords of Manises,
offers important evidence for localising the known group of such vessels
to that centre (fig. 2).

Fig. 1 (above) Fig. 2 (below)

Charger with the ‘IHS’ Dish with the arms of
trigram the Boyl family, lords of
Spain, Valencia, Manises Manises
c. 1480-1500 Spain, Valencia, Manises
45 cm (diameter); tin- c. 1475-1500
glazed earthenware with 38.1 cm (diameter); tin-
copper lustre decoration glazed earthenware with
Paris, musée de Cluny, inv. copper lustre decoration
Cl.2241 New York, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, inv.
94.4.362

1, Xavier Dectot,
Céramiques hispaniques
(XIIe-XVIIIe siècle), Paris,
musée de Cluny, 2007, pp.
66-68.

94 95
24 A ‘socarrat’ ceiling tile depicting Saints Cosmas and
Damian
A
large earthenware ceiling tile showing two male figures identified Spain, Valencia, Paterna
by their attributes and the florid inscription beneath their feet as c. 1450-1500
the surgeon saints Cosmas and Damian, the Arab physicians and
43 x 35 x 3.5 cm (height x width x depth at thickest point);
early Christian martyrs who lived in the Roman province of Syria and Earthenware with manganese and iron oxide pigments
were executed during the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian. They over a white slip on a reddish clay. Some chip losses to the
are depicted not in archaicizing dress but in elaborate, contemporary extremities of the tile, including two larger chips along the
fifteenth-century attire with alternating panels of decoration on their lower edge, perhaps incurred during its removal from a
ceiling structure.
long, belted garments and voluminous sleeves. Evoking their studious
dedication to the medical profession, Cosmas holds a urine sample up to Provenance
the light in a bulbous glass jar. Their heads are framed by circular haloes Private collection, Spain
reserved against a background of dense wriggling swirls and palmette
motifs.

The term socarrat (from the Valencian term for 'scorched') refers to large
fired-earth tiles manufactured using slabs of clay that are smoothed and
left to air dry, before being rubbed with a white clay slip and decorated
using black and red pigments derived from manganese and iron oxides.1
They were fired once in order to fix their pigments in place and produce
their striking red and black tonality, but otherwise left unglazed. They
have historically been linked to the pottery-producing town of Paterna on
the outskirts of Valencia, since a number of them are stamped in places
(normally on their front face) with the town’s coat of arms (fig. 1).2 They
were made to decorate ceilings, slotted between the rafters in apparently
random arrangements – the effect being reliant more on their bold strength
of colour and visual diversity than any form of narrative program. The
vast majority of surviving tiles are decorated with Islamic-inspired vegetal
forms or animals in profile, and only a vanishing number display figures
with the complexity and sophistication of our saints.

Fig. 1
Socarrat tile with a ship in
full sail
Spain, Valencia, Paterna
15th century
41 x 33.5cm, fired
earthenware
Madrid, Museo
Arqueológico Nacional, inv.
no. 60399

1, F. Amigues & G.
Mesquida Garcia, Les
ateliers et la ceramique
de Paterna (XVIIIe-XVe
siecle), Exh. Cat., Beziers,
Musée Saint-Jacques, 2, Anthony Ray, Spanish
July-October 1993; Á. Pottery 1248-1898, London,
Mata Franco, ‘Socarrat’, 2000, pp. 322-4; Balbina
Aragón, Reino y Corona, Martínez Caviró, Cerámica
Exh. Cat., Saragossa, 2000; Hispanomusulmana:
Á. Mata Franco et. al., Andalusí y Mudéjar, Madrid,
‘La Documentación de las 1991, pp. 216-9; Manuel
Cerámicas Valencianas González Marti, 'Azulejos',
Medievales en el Museo 'Socarrats' and 'Retablos',
Arqueológico Nacional’, in articles in Ceramica del
La Cerámica de Paterna. levante español, Siglos
Reflejos del Mediterráneo, medievales, Vol. III,
Exh. Cat., Valencia, 2002. Barcelona 1952

96 97
25 Four floor tiles with eagle and tower motifs, the
arms of the Torres y Aguilar family
T
he forceful geometry and strong, polarised palette of these four Spain, Valencia, Manises
heraldic floor tiles remain as mesmerising today as they would have c. 1475-1500
been to medieval viewers, undinted by the passage of time. The
13.8 x 13.8 cm x 1.7 cm each (height x width x depth); Tin-
concave spaces left at the centre of each tile by its chequerboard quarter- glazed earthenware with cobalt blue decoration on a pale
discs in each corner are emblazoned with the emblems of the Torres y buff-coloured clay. Sporadic chips to the glaze, particularly
Aquilar family, which alternate between clustered castles and rampant around the edges of each tile, and some light abrasion to the
eagles with outstretched wings. surface.

Provenance
It is clear from the variety of heraldic designs and other emblems which Most likely made to decorate the family home of the Torres
populate surviving tiles incorporating the strong geometric corner designs y Aguilar family at 1, Calle Padre de Huerfanos, Valencia;
of our four that the Valencian potters responsible for their invention had Private collection, Valencia
struck on a brilliant, winning formula, and they received orders for entire
floors of them from the highest echelons of contemporary society.1 A
large group of them, with various iterations of the same motifs as those
appearing on our set, can still be found in situ at the Castillo de Alaquás,
near Valencia, for many years the seat of the noble Torres y Aguilar
family.2 Originally built in the fourteenth century, the castle passed into
the ownership of Berenguer Martin, the treasurer to Maria of Castile,
Queen of Aragon (1401-1458) who enjoyed considerable favour at court.
When he died heirless, the castle was acquired through his daughter by
Jaime García de Aguilar, who strengthened the status of the two families
by marriage. In his authoritative 1944-1952 survey publications on
Spanish medieval pottery, Manuel Gonzalez Martí first brought to light a
group of tiles to which our four belong in another of the Torres y Aguilar
family’s residences, which was located on the Calle Padre de Huerfanos in
Valencia.3 The building has since been demolished, but it is highly likely
that our group and others of the same design were made to decorate its
rooms in the final decades of the fifteenth century.

1, Cf. variants of the

design with ‘Moors’ heads’
in the Victoria and Albert
Museum; Anthony Ray,
Spanish Pottery 1248-1898,
London, 2000, no. 627, p.
318.

2, María Teresa Ferrando

Martí and María Teresa
Planells Ibor, ‘Los Azulejos 3, Manuel Gonzalez
del Siglo XV del Castillo- Martí, Cerámica del
Palacio de Alaquàs. Levante Español, Vol.
Descripción y Clasificación’ 3: Azulejos, Retablos y
in Quaderns d’Investigacío Socarrats, Barcelona, 1944-
d’Alaquàs, 1983, pp. 9-22, 1952, pp. 69-70; see also
p. 13 ff. Martí and Ibor 1983, p. 14.

98 99
26 A Hispano-Moresque gadroon-moulded lustreware
charger A boldly decorated Hispano-Moresque lustreware dish with a rampant hare
facing a dexter in a central armorial boss raised above an encircling basin in
Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1500-1520
which the words ‘INSURG[E] DOMIN[I]’ appear three times in a continuous 39.5 cm (diameter) x 5.7 cm (height); Tin-glazed
running band. A broad rim of broad, tapered gadrooning encloses the imagery, earthenware with cobalt blue and copper lustre decoration
decorated with fielded panels in alternating foliate sprays, lace/fish-scale on a deep buff-coloured clay. Some rubbing to the lustred
motifs, and solid lustred grounds. The whole is delicately offset by fine decoration in places, and a small section of the rim restored.
concentric bands of a bright cobalt blue framing the central escutcheon and An original piercing hole near the upper rim for suspension.
the inner and outer lips of the raised rim. The underside is decorated with a
Provenance
series of large arabesque palmette motifs encircled by swirling vines against a Private collection, France;
bright white ground. Their sale, De Baecque Encheres, 10th November 2018, lot
172
Far from the more typical form of fictive lettering designed for decoration
rather than literary content, the inscription in the central well of this lustred Inscriptions and markings
‘INSVRG[E] DOMIN[I]’ encircling the central boss
earthenware charger is easily decipherable and constitutes an abbreviated
form of a Latin prayer that translates as ‘Rise Lord to free us’. Its inclusion
on Hispano-Moresque earthenware has led some scholars to argue that dishes
like our example were intended for use in Eucharistic ritual. It can be found
on several surviving examples of Spanish lustreware in various forms, but
its precise origins in this context are unclear. It was popularised greatly by
its use as the title of an important Papal bull, issued at Worms on 15th June
1520, condemning the errors of Martin Luther, and it is tempting to associate
the phrase in its use on this and related dishes with support for the stance of
the Catholic church in that controversy. However, the phrase is also used in
several of the Biblical Psalms, and was not coined specifically for the Papal
Bull, suggesting an earlier application in line with our understanding of the
development of lustre wares in Valencia before 1520.

In the late fifteenth century a shift in taste led to the introduction of new forms
to the Valencian potters’ repertoire, chief among them being dishes like ours,
with a raised and undulating surface known as gadrooning. It is a design
borrowed from contemporary metalwork, which often comprised raised
decorative elements of exactly this form and scale. The composition of our
example is heavily indebted to the Islamic tradition, notably so for the design Fig. 1 (above)
of the underside, in combination with a central Christian heraldic medallion at A Hispano-Moresque lustre
the centre. It can be dated to the turn of the sixteenth century and was likely a ware dish with the arms of
special commission for celebratory occasions. Two dishes with a comparable Aragon-Sicily
decorative scheme and a markedly similar decoration on their undersides Spain, Valencia, Manises
c. 1500
are now held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.1 A somewhat
38.4 cm (diameter); Tin-
similar gadrooned dish, with the same use of cobalt decoration running in glazed earthenware with
concentric bands around a central armorial boss, can be found in the collection cobalt blue and copper
of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (fig. 1), of only marginally lustre
smaller size. London, Victoria and Albert
Museum, Inv. No. 168-1893

1, Inv. nos. 56.171.160, and

68.215.2.

100 101
27 A round-bodied ewer emblazoned with the Cross of
Santiago and the Ave Maria
T
his magnificently rotund and generous form of ewer is emblazoned Spain, Seville
on its front face with the Cross of Santiago, demarcated in ochre c. 1500
yellow against a white ground bisected by richly patterned bands of
27 cm (height) x 22 cm (diameter); Tin glazed earthenware
foliate sprays in alternating colours of green, blue and yellow. The body with yellow ochre, manganese, copper green, and cobalt
of the ewer is separated from its neck by a blue band. A large inscription blue decoration on a dark buff-coloured clay. A cross motif
with the first two words of the Angelic Salutation ‘ave maria’ in Gothic (perhaps a workshop mark) left in reserve on the foot,
miniscule script encircles the shoulder. The back of the ewer has the almost directly below the handle stump. The rim filed down
at some point in its history, perhaps to take a metalwork
remnants of a delicate blue handle, now missing. attachment since removed. The foot likewise reduced
and with a punctured hole through its centre. The handle
missing.

Provenance
Private collection, south-eastern France;
Their sale, Pierre Berge, Paris, 1st June 2017, lot 46

The dominant palette of blue, green and deep, yellowish brown on a beige
background is typical of the so-called cuerda seca technique perfected
in the pottery workshops of Seville during the Middle Ages.1 Its effect is
achieved by applying a linear design directly on to a clay vessel using a
liquid mixture (such as molten wax) in order to demarcate and contain
separate fields of coloured glaze, which are applied in the subsequent
1, ‘La Cerámica
stage of production. When heated in the kiln, these liquid lines burn Sevillana’, in Balbina
away, leaving a dry, unglazed outline (cuerda seca translates as dry Martínez Caviró, Cerámica
cord) and creating a bold and legible design where the different colours Hispanomusulmana:
of glaze are kept separate or purposely blended within contained fields. Andalusí y Mudéjar,
Madrid, 1991, pp. 257-303.
This technique has Islamic origins and was first introduced to Spain in
the dominant Caliphal period of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It 2, Martínez Caviró 1991,
came back into fashion in the late fifteenth century, during the reign of p. 301, figs. 338, 339;
the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, but remarkably few fully see also Martínez Caviró,
Catalogo de Ceramica
three-dimensional vessels exploiting the technique have come down to us Española, Madrid, 1968,
from this period.2 nos. 126, 127.

102 103
Given its iconography, it is likely that our ewer was made for a member
of the Order of Santiago, or for a wealthy convent or monastery
situated on the Camino de Santiago that bisects northern Spain and
directs pilgrims to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Similarly
ambitious vessels incorporating the same closed palmette sprays visible
on the neck of our vessel include a pair of bowls now in the collection of
the Hispanic Society of America, and another in the Victoria and Albert
Museum, London (figs. 1-2). However, the form and iconography of
this particular ewer appears to be unique among the surviving corpus of
medieval cuerda seca pottery.3

Fig. 1 (above) Fig. 2 (below)

Dish decorated with a harpy Dish decorated with a
in cuerda seca design in cuerda seca
Spain, Seville Spain, Seville
c. 1500 c. 1500-30
39.5 cm (diameter) x 44.9 cm (diameter)
6.3 cm (height); Tin- x 7 cm (height); Tin-
glazed earthenware with glazed earthenware with
manganese, copper green, manganese, copper green,
cobalt blue and ochre cobalt blue and ochre
yellow decoration yellow decoration
New York, Hispanic Society London, Victoria and Albert
of America, inv. E502 Museum, inv. 300-1893

3, Martínez Caviró 1991,

p. 299 ff.

104 105
 Italy

106 107
28 A bowl with a lion rampant amongst foliage

A
small, footed bowl featuring a lion rampant turned in profile to the Italy, Umbria, probably Orvieto
left against a background of crosshatched decoration punctuated c. 1300-1350
with large, heart-shaped leaf sprays. In places the foliage overlaps
24 cm (diameter) x 8.7 cm (height); Tin-glazed earthenware
the lion’s profile. Encircling the inside of the vertical rim is a double band with manganese brown and copper green on a dark buff
of green within thin manganese borders. body. The reverse was lead-glazed by pouring the liquid
glaze over the clay, the foot is unglazed. Reassembled from
A number of early wares with abstract ornament have come down to us, multiple fragments with some in-painting to the losses. Two
short sections of the rim replaced. Thermoluminescence
but far fewer with any figurative decoration have survived, and, in turn, analysis undertaken by Oxford Authentication in March
lions are some of the rarest animals to appear. They were used variously 2022 confirms a date of firing between 600 and 900 years
for their heraldic, monarchic and symbolic significance, and often as ago. Report by Helen Mason, 28th March 2022.
emblems of strength and courage. A larger dish from the Mortimer
Provenance
Schiff collection, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Elia Volpi, Davanzati Palace, Florence; his sale, American
shows two such beasts on either side of a central sprouting branch, an Art Galleries, New York, 25 November 1916, lot 646
arrangement Timothy Wilson has suggested may have been derived from
imagery of the Tree of Life, where pairs of creatures are commonly shown Published
The rare and very valuable art treasures and antiquities
flanking flowering plants.1 The design of the lion on our bowl is likely to formerly contained in the famous Davanzati Palace, also
have been influenced by Islamic ceramics, metalwork and textiles, as is those contained in the Villa Pia, Florence, Italy, Sale Cat.,
particularly evident in details such as the decorative compartment on his American Art Galleries, New York, lot 646
left foreleg.2 Such sources also help to explain the convention of cross-
Elisa Sani, Matthew Reeves, and Justin Raccanello,
hatching the background with manganese that so characterizes our bowl Maiolica before Raphael, Exh. Cat., London, 2017, no. 2,
and a number of similar vessels attributed to Orvieto potters.3 Certainly, pp. 48-51
great care was taken in composing its tight, skilfully organized design.
Aside from two areas where the foliate sprays overlap the lion’s body,
their bold, heart-shaped leaves are otherwise carefully trained into the
spaces surrounding his profile. And, while the background is thrown into
depth and shade by the meticulous manganese cross-hatching, a running
border of brown lines and broader green brushstrokes around the interior
of the vertical rim are equally suggestive of shadow, and accentuate its
curved cross-section.

1, Timothy Wilson,
Maiolica. Italian
Renaissance Ceramics in
the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, 2016, p. 50.

2, Cf. incense burners

in the form of lynxes,
illustrated in Mikhail
B. Piotrovsky and John
M. Rogers, Heaven on
Earth: Art from Islamic
Lands, Exh. Cat., London,
Somerset House, 2004, nos.
36-37, pp. 86-87.

3, Catherine Hess, Italian

Maiolica, Catalogue of the
Collections, Los Angeles, J.
Paul Getty Museum, 1988,
p. 20; cf. Piotrovsky and
Rogers 2004, no. 19, p. 69.

108 109
 The form and decoration of our bowl, as well as the light colour of its
clay, compare closely with material known to have been excavated in
Orvieto and preserved in the town’s museum.4 Early photographic records
taken of the pottery dug up in Orvieto during the first decade of the last
century, which feature wares with the same stylistic and iconographic
elements as our bowl, further help to confirm this localization.5 In
particular, the placement of the lion in space, with his paws just making
contact with the outer border of the design, the heart-shaped leaves filling
the surrounding areas, the compartmented design on his foreleg, and the
stylized spear-like flourish at the end of his tail, are all characteristic of
documented examples of Orvieto pottery dated to the first half of the
fourteenth century.6 Also analogous is the use of manganese and green
together, particularly in the delineation of the animal’s mane.

The loss of its glossy surface indicates that, like most early pottery of its
type, our bowl spent a large part of its history underground.

4, See Carola Fiocco

and Gabriella Gerardi,
Ceramiche umbre dal
Medioevo allo Storicismo, 6, For the use of heart-
Catalogo generale del shaped leaves in Orvietan
Museo Internazionale delle wares see in particular a jug
Ceramiche in Faenza, Vol. in the Museo dell’Opera
5 (two parts), Faenza, 1989; del Duomo in Orvieto, in
cf. a jug with a lion rampant Giuseppe M. Della Fina and
in the Museo dell’Opera Corrado Fratini, Storia di
del Duomo in Orvieto, Orvieto. Vol. II – Medioevo,
illustrated in Maria Selene 2007, p. 577, fig. 14. For
Sconci, Museo dell’opera the figure’s placement see,
del Duomo di Orvieto. for example, a larger dish
Ceramiche, Florence, 2011, in the Deposito comunale,
no. 113. Orvieto, in Alberto Satolli
ed., La ceramica orvietana
5, See in particular a del medioevo, Exh. Cat.,
jug with a lion formerly Milan, 1983, no. VII, p. 45,
at the Palazzo Davanzati, and another in the Museum
illustrated in Lucio Riccetti of Applied Arts, Budapest,
ed., 1909 tra collezionismo illustrated in Riccetti 2010,
e tutela. John Pierpont p. 466 no. 8.1.13; see also a
Morgan, Alexandre Imbert bowl in the V&A decorated
e la ceramica medievale with a bird, in Bernard
orvietana, Exh. Ca., Rackham, Catalogue of
Perugia, Galleria Nazionale Italian Maiolica, London,
dell’Umbria, 2010, p. 92, 1940 (1977 ed.), pl. 2, no.
fig. 23a–b. 14.

110 111
29 A two-handled bowl with geometric decoration

A
deep, two-handled bowl of tin-glazed earthenware with copper
green and manganese brown decoration. On the interior, a
rudimentary chain motif runs around the narrow, almost vertical
Italy, Umbria, Orvieto
c. 1280–1300

9.5 cm (height) x 28.3 cm (diameter including handles);

section of the side walls, with a quartered design of abstract triple bands Tin-glazed earthenware with copper green and manganese
against a hatched background on the shallower raking section of the bowl. brown decoration on a buff-coloured body, with a flanged
In the small central well is a petalled rosette of eight leaves in alternating rim and a flat foot-ring. Two strap handles applied below
designs of hatched manganese and green chevron brushstrokes. the rim on either side of the body. A clear lead glaze coats
the exterior and has splashed on to the underside of the foot
in places. Reassembled from multiple fragments with some
This handsome bowl, one of the earliest Orvieto wares in this catalogue, in-painting.
is an unusually large survival for its type. It is characteristic of the
earliest form of maiolica made in Italy – often called archaic maiolica Provenance
Elia Volpi, Davanzati Palace, Florence, c. 1930; John Philip
– whose decoration is applied with a limited palette of copper green Kassebaum (1932–2016); circular printed Kassebaum
and manganese brown over a greyish tin glaze. This class of maiolica collection label on the underside of the foot
predominated in north-central Italy roughly between the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. Its patterns were influenced by imported textiles, Published
The John Philip Kassebaum Collection, I, 1981, p. 53, fig.
ceramics and metalwork, but there is also likely to have been a degree of 56
artistic convention in the choice of motifs; those elements that worked
visually in this medium would obviously be repeated by workshops a Elisa Sani, Matthew Reeves, and Justin Raccanello,
number of times. Maiolica before Raphael, Exh. Cat., London, 2017, no. 1,
pp. 44-47.
The discovery of vast quantities of vessels and fragments with similar
decoration during excavations in Orvieto in the early twentieth century
caused something of a fever amongst maiolica collectors.1 It was a
moment of great discovery for pioneering museum curators of the age,
such as Wilhelm von Bode and his protégé Wilhelm Valentiner, who
moved quickly to acquire Orvieto pottery. Such was the frenzy with
which it was bought up by private and public collections alike, and the
concurrently poor regulation of the many excavations being undertaken,
that there exists scant documentary or physical criteria for any precise
reconstruction of the chronology or development of Orvieto ware.2
Nevertheless, various aspects of our bowl’s design are so analogous to
those used on early vessels preserved in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo
in Orvieto – which number amongst the very few fully documented
objects to have been excavated in the town – that it can almost certainly be
classified as a product of that centre.3 Alongside the characteristic use of a

.
1, Lucio Riccetti ed.,
1909 tra collezionismo
e tutela. John Pierpont
Morgan, Alexandre Imbert
e la ceramica medievale
orvietana, Exh. Ca.,
Perugia, Galleria Nazionale
dell’Umbria, 2010,
especially pp. 64ff.

2, Timothy Wilson,
Maiolica. Italian
Renaissance Ceramics in
the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York, 2016, pp.
48-50.

3, For the most

authoritative recent
overview of Orvieto
ceramics at the Orvieto
museum see Maria Selene
Sconci, Museo dell’opera
del Duomo di Orvieto.
Ceramiche, Florence, 2011.

112 113
chain motif in green around the rim, the central rosette on our bowl seems
to have been highly popular amongst Orvietan potters, since a number of
smaller bowls to have survived show versions of the same, often forming
the sole decorative element of their design.4 The bold, tripartite ribbon
motifs that occupy each of the four quartered segments of the interior
have far scarcer parallels, but reappear on a jug localized to Orvieto in the
Fondazione Horne, Florence.5 A variant combination of all these motifs
was used in the decoration of a bowl of comparable scale to ours, possibly
attributable to the same potter, from the Pelo Pardi collection now at the
Palazzo Venezia Museum.6 Our bowl was potted during a period in which
Orvieto enjoyed perhaps its most productive and prosperous chapter of
history, when the town was a populous centre and it held a position of
political importance within the wider region. Its prominence was boosted
in 1262, when Pope Urban IV stayed in the city, and it was subsequently
home to the papal court for long intermittent periods and, in 1268 and
1272–73, to the court of Charles of Anjou.7 The city’s financial and
political buoyancy began to erode, however, during the second quarter
of the fourteenth century, when internal strife occupied its government
and the outbreak of the Plague decimated its population.8 The prominent
Florentine collector-dealer and connoisseur Elia Volpi (1858– 1938) used
our bowl as part of a wonderful display of early Orvietan wares that he
put together at the Davanzati Palace, which functioned as a showroom
for his commercial activities in Florence, and where he sought to recreate
the domestic interior of a rich Renaissance palazzo for twentieth-century
audiences (fig. 1).

Fig. 1 (above)
Display of Orvieto maiolica
at the Palazzo Davanzati,
4, Alberto Satolli ed., La Florence, c. 1930
ceramica orvietana del
medioevo, Exh. Cat., Milan,
1983, no. 82, p. 78, no. 90,
p. 80. 7, Julia Poole, Italian
Maiolica and incised
5, Ibid., no. 92, p. 81. Slipware in the Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge,
6, Illustrated in Maria Cambridge, 1995, p. 4.
Selene Sconci, Oltre il
Frammento: Forme e decori 8, For an overview of
della maiolica medievale Orvieto’s changing fortunes
orvietana, Luca, 2000, no. during the period see Satolli
159, p. 200. 1983.

114 115
30&31 Two-handled serving bowls decorated with
geometric and vegetal motifs

116 117
 Knotted or lobed circle motifs (often described as ‘a nodi’ in the Italian
literature on such wares1) have been found on both serving bowls and,
in a variant form, on jugs and other wares dated to the first half of the
fourteenth century, which suggests that our example of this type can be
similarly dated.2

Its counterpart, decorated with four inward facing trilobed leaf sprays
arranged around a central cross motif below a frieze of cusped green
diamonds arranged on their points, belongs to a subsequent generation of
wares. Vessels of a similar form and decoration include examples in the
Orvieto museum3, and a bowl with a fish in its central well now preserved
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (fig. 1), which has been
dated to the beginning of the fifteenth century.4 A large strap-handled
jug decorated with the same arrangement of trilobed leafsprays in each
quadrant of a central cross motif is in the British Museum. Fascinatingly
it was restored in the same way as a small section of our vessel, using
carefully matched fired-ceramic infills that scholars now think must have
been added by art dealers in the first decade of the twenteth century.5 Fig. 1
Two-handled serving bowl
Thanks to its appearance in a photographic survey of early collections
with a fish
of Orvietan pottery amassed by Arcangelo Marcioni and Ferdinando Italy, Umbria, Orvieto
Lucatelli, undertaken in 1909-10 prior to their public sale at Sotheby’s c. 1400-1430
in 1914, it is overwhelmingly likely that our bowl was discovered in 10 x 33.2 x 30.2 cm;
tin-glazed earthenware
that town in the years around 1900 and can therefore be localised with
with copper green and
Italy, Umbria, Orvieto Italy, Umbria, Orvieto confidence (fig. 2). Marcioni and Lucatelli’s early documentation, created manganese brown
c. 1300-1350 c. 1400 at a time when few attempts were yet being taken to systematically record decoration
29 cm (diameter including handles) x 10 cm (height); Tin- 29.4 cm (diameter including handles) x 10.5 cm (height); Tin- or categorise these newly rediscovered ceramics properly, has made it New York, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, inv. 10.18.1
glazed earthenware with copper green and manganese brown glazed earthenware with copper green and manganese brown a precious time capsule of discovery and of the burgeoning interest in
decoration on buff-coloured clay, with thick rim, slightly decoration on buff-coloured clay, with thick rim, slightly medieval and Renaissance maiolica’s vernacular roots.
carinated collar, deep well, and broad, flat foot ring. Two carinated collar, deep well, and broad, flat foot ring. Two
strap handles applied below the rim on either side. A clear strap handles with pronounced central fluting applied below
lead glaze coats the exterior. Reassembled from multiple the rim on either side. A clear lead glaze coats the exterior.
fragments with some in-painting. Reassembled from multiple fragments with some in-painting.
A small section of the vessel infilled with fired ceramic, almost
Provenance certainly an early twentieth-century repair of a type found on
Private collection, Siena other early Orvieto wares restored in the years around 1910.
Provenance
From the collections of Signor Avvocato Arcangelo Marcioni
and Cavaliere Capitano Ferdinando Lucatelli, Orvieto (before
1914);
With Alessandro Imbert (1865-1943), Via Condotti, Rome;
William Ridout collection, London and Toronto;
John Philip Kassebaum collection, by 1981;
His sale, Brunk Auctions, 21st September 2013, lot 28
3, Alberto Satolli ed., La
Published
ceramica orvietana del
J. V. G. Mallet, The John Philip Kassebaum Collection, Vol.
Fig. 2 medioevo, Exh. Cat., Milan,
1, Kansas City, 1981, p. 52, no. 55
The later of our two vessels 1983, no. 187, p. 113, no.
191, p. 114.
Both of these comparably proportioned serving bowls, a type of vessel (middle row, far left) pictured
often described as a ‘catino’, are decorated with a bold lexicon of as part of the privately
produced survey of the 1, Gian Carlo Bojani et. 4, Cf. also Maria Selene
geometric motifs applied using a combination of pale turquoise green collections of Signor Avvocato al., Ceramiche medioevali Sconci and Alberto Satolli,
derived from copper, and deep manganese brown. They are typical of a Arcangelo Marcioni and dell’Umbria: Assisi, Oltre Il Frammento: Forme
family of glazed tablewares produced in the Umbrian town of Orvieto Cavaliere Capitano Ferdinando Orvieto, Todi, Exh. Cat., e Decori della Maiolica
Lucatelli, Orvieto Spoleto, 1981, figs. 20-23, Medievale Orvietana, Il
during the fourteenth century and which have come to be known as p. 57. Recupero della Collezione
Before 1910
‘Proto-maiolica’. Orvietan pottery from this period is marked by its London, British Museum del Pelo Pardi, Tarquinia,
graphic free-spiritedness, with motifs and decorative flourishes that spin 2, Cf. Guido Mazza, La 1999, p. 195, no. 154.
Ceramica Medioevale di
like whirligigs and hum with a frenetic immediacy. The vegetal and
Viterbo e dell’Alto Lazio, 5, inv. 1913,1117.2; see Dora
geometric schemes employed on both of our vessels are perfect examples Viterbo, 1983, no. 69, p. 59; Thornton and Timothy
of this forceful energy, and were evidently successful and popular see also a jug incorporating Wilson, Italian Renaissance
iterations of their type since they can be found on a number of related elements of the same Ceramics: A catalogue
scheme in the Fitzwilliam of the British Museum
examples that have been localized to Orvieto by find spot or provenance.
Museum, Cambridge, inv. collection, London, 2009,
C.67-1991. no. 38.

118 119
32 A large two-handled bowl decorated with a lobated leaf

T
his unusually grand two-handled bowl, with its huge green and Italy, Umbria, Orvieto
c. 1420
purple leaf spray almost entirely covering the vessel’s interior
surface against a finely cross-hatched ground encircled just below 11.7 cm (height) x 36.5 cm (diameter including handles);
the rim by a running chain motif in manganese green, is among the Tin-glazed earthenware with copper green and manganese
most fully realised examples of large-leaf design in the entire surviving brown decoration on a pinkish buff clay, with a broad,
corpus of Orvieto ‘archaic maiolica’ pottery. It represents the last great flanged rim and a flat foot-ring. Two undulating strap
flowering of this beguiling family of wares, the production of which handles applied below the rim on either side of the body.
A clear lead glaze coats the exterior. Reassembled from
waned dramatically in the years after 1400 concurrent with the downturn
multiple fragments with some in-painting and small infilled
of the town’s fortunes following a century of financial turbulence and sections. Thermoluminescence analysis undertaken by
intermittent bouts of Plague.1 The rich use of tin in its decoration – an eye- Oxford Authentication in October 2021 confirms a date of
wateringly expensive material imported to Italy from abroad – help points firing between 530 and 800 years ago. Report by Helen
to a date of manufacture in the fifteenth century, when its availability for Mason, 1st November 2021.
Italian potters had widened and its comparative cost reduced. A late date is
Provenance
further supported by its design, which very likely draws on the influence Cheffins, Cambridge, 25th May 2016, lot 95;
of contemporary textiles. Such a link would have been newly possible Private collection, UK
for Orvietan potters of the early fifteenth century given the burgeoning
popularity of broad leaf-patterned cut velvets being produced in a number
of the larger Italian centres, including Florence and Venice, at exactly
this date.2 The use of large-leaf motifs in Orvieto is well precedented,
and can be found on a small handful of contemporary vessels including
examples in the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza3, and the
Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin4, though on neither of these examples do
their scale reach that deployed on our vessel.5 Other features of its design,
such as the characteristic use of a chain motif in green around the rim,
and the moulded undulations to its handles, were highly popular amongst
Orvietan potters, the latter feature especially marked on fifteenth-century
wares.

1, For an overview of
Orvieto’s changing fortunes
during the period see
Alberto Satolli ed., La 4, Lucio Riccetti ed.,
ceramica orvietana del 1909 tra collezionismo
medioevo, Exh. Cat., Milan, e tutela. John Pierpont
1983. Morgan, Alexandre Imbert
e la ceramica medievale
2, Cf. a similar lobed-leaf orvietana, Exh. Ca.,
design on a Venetian velvet Perugia, Galleria Nazionale
of the 1420s in the Victoria dell’Umbria, 2010, no.
and Albert Museum, for 6.11.12, p. 426.
which see Lisa Monnas,
Renaissance Velvets, 5, An example with a
London, 2012, no. 4, pp. large pinecone is in the
60-61. Another parallel is Fitzwilliam Museum,
in the Schnütgen Museum, Cambridge, for which see
Cologne, produced in Julia Poole, Italian Maiolica
Venice in the first quarter of and Incised Slipware in
the 15th century, for which the Fitzwilliam Museum
see Gudrun Sporbeck, Cambridge, Cambridge,
Museum Schnütgen: Die 1995, p. 69; Cf. also a
Liturgischen Gewänder smaller two-handled bowl
11. bis 19. Jahrhundert, with a lobated leaf design
Cologne, 2001, no. 62, pp. illustrated in Gian Carlo
238-9. Bojani et. al., Ceramiche
medioevali dell’Umbria:
3, Satolli 1983, no. 76, Assisi, Orvieto, Todi, Exh.
p. 76. Cat., Spoleto, 1981, p. 150.

120 121
122 123
33 A baluster-shaped jug with an eagle in flight

B
aluster-shaped pouring vessels with a slender concave profile Italy, Umbria, Orvieto
c. 1400
between the body and foot were a popular product of the hilltop
town of Orvieto during the fourteenth century, and were traded 27.7 cm (height) x 13.5 cm (width) x 16 cm (depth including
widely from there across the Umbrian region.1 They have been found handle); Tin-glazed earthenware with copper green and
in some numbers both in excavations undertaken in Orvieto itself2, and manganese brown decoration on a buff-coloured clay, with
a pinched, trilobe spout, thick strap handle and pear-shaped
at other sites including the convent of Saint Francis at Assisi, where
body raised on a concave foot with an everted foot ring.
they were used in the refectory by its monastic inhabitants.3 It is clear The vessel’s rim and handled restored. Thermoluminescence
both from recent finds (as at Assisi) and from contemporary medieval analysis undertaken by Oxford Authentication in October
depictions in other media that such wares were highly-prized tablewares; a 2021 confirms a date of firing between 400 and 600 years
ago. Report by Helen Mason, 1st November 2021.
Sienese scene from the predella of Duccio’s 1308 masterpiece the Maestà,
showing the Marriage Feast at Cana reveals how vessels like ours Provenance
may have been used in ceremonial occasions (fig. 1a). In its foreground Private collection, Siena
vignette, wine arriving in large wooden barrels is first decanted into
terracotta jars, before being served to the diners themselves in small
jugs and ewers finely decorated in a palette of manganese purple and
copper green. Although potted with a steep, conical neck rather than an
outward flaring one (a likely sign of its earlier manufacture), the example

Fig. 1a
The Marriage Feast at Cana, predella
panel from the Maestà altarpiece, by
Duccio di Bouninsegna
1308 1, For a discussion of this
Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo type of ware see Timothy
Wilson Ceramic Art of 3, For the Assisi
the Italian Renaissance, excavations see Gian Carlo
London, 1987, no. 6. Bojani et. al., Ceramiche
medioevali dell’Umbria:
2, Early excavations Assisi, Orvieto, Todi, Exh.
in Orvieto were poorly Cat., Spoleto, 1981; Cf.
recorded but more recent similarly potted vessels
discoveries have been (though with relief
far more systematically decoration) in the Bargello
assessed. See for example museum, illustrated
Alberto Satolli ed., La in Manuela Bernardi,
ceramica orvietana del Ceramica Medievale
medioevo, Exh. Cat., Milan, umbro-laziale, Florence,
1983. 1987, nos. 7-8, pp. 27-29.

124 125
held by the attendant near the centre of the image’s lower register is
painted with what appears to be an eagle in flight, its wing outstretched
in a manner identical to that of our version (fig. 1b). Alongside vegetal
forms and abstract ornament, eagle motifs seem to have been especially
popular on Umbrian ceramics of this period, and a wealth of parallels
on slender-footed ‘archaic maiolica’ pouring vessels localised to Orvieto
have survived (fig. 2). Many depict such birds almost exactly as it appears
on our jug; wings outstretched as if in flight with its left-facing body
traversed by stripes or other geometric designs and its wings tipped with
manganese at the point of its carpal joint.4

Fig. 2 (above)
Jug with two eagles
Italy, Orvieto (or possibly
Siena)
Late 14th century
28 cm (height) x 13.5 cm
(diameter); Tin-glazed
earthenware with copper
green and manganese brown
Paris, musee du Louvre

Fig. 1b
Detail of the archaic maiolica jug
in the foreground scene of the
Maestà altarpiece, by Duccio di
Bouninsegna

4, Cf. Bojani 1981, p. 26,

and nos. 3-4, p. 96.

126 127
34 A baluster-shaped jug with geometric decoration

U
nlike its figurative counterpart in this catalogue (Cat. 33), the Italy, Umbria, Orvieto
c. 1400
forceful patterns emblazoned across the front of this slender
jug make it a masterpiece of pure geometric abstraction. A 27.7 cm (height) x 13.5 cm (width) x 16 cm (depth including
large central cross divides its bulbous, pear-shaped body into four, with handle); Tin-glazed earthenware with copper green and
alternating fields of green checkerboard motifs and hatched manganese manganese brown decoration on a buff-coloured clay, with
a pinched, trilobe spout, thick strap handle and pear-shaped
bands in each quadrant. A running band of chain link motifs encircles the
body raised on a concave foot with an everted foot ring.
rim. The vessel’s rim and handled restored. Thermoluminescence
analysis undertaken by Oxford Authentication in October
Perhaps above all other pottery-producing centres in medieval Italy, the 2021 confirms a date of firing between 400 and 600 years
ago. Report by Helen Mason, 1st November 2021.
potters of Orvieto produced their greatest achievements and innovations
not in figurative decoration but in abstract, geometric schemes of the Provenance
type exemplified by this example, which sings with fantastic immediacy. Private collection, Siena
Similar vessels have been found in sites at Orvieto but also in Siena
during excavations undertaken in the 1970s on the site of the Contrada
del Nicchio.1 Surviving sister pieces elsewhere include a similarly potted
jug in the Faenza museum2, and two jugs preserved in the treasury of the
convent of Saint Francis at Assisi - a jug with a comparable approach
to its striped and diamond-form decoration, and another with an eagle
whose body is decorated using the same bold checkerboard design as that
appearing on our example.3

1, S. Nepoti, 'La maiolica 3, B. Montuschi Simboli,

arcaica nella Valle in Gian Carlo Bojani ed.,
Padana', in La Ceramica Ceramica fra Marche e
Medievale nel Mediterraneo Umbria dal Medioevo al
Occidentale, Siena and Rinascimento, Bologna,
Faenza, 1984, pp. 409-19; 1992, pp. 31, 35; see also
Riccardo Francovich, a jug with a diamond
‘La Ceramica medievale checkerboard pattern
a Siena e nello Toscana executed with a similar
meridionale (secc.XIV-XV). weighting of manganese to
Materiali per una tipologia’, copper illustrated in Maria
Ricerche di archeologia Selene Sconci and Alberto
altomedievale e medievale, Satolli, Oltre Il Frammento:
5/6 (1982). Forme e Decori della
Maiolica Medievale
2, Alberto Satolli ed., Orvietana, Il Recupero della
La ceramica orvietana del Collezione del Pelo Pardi,
medioevo, Exh. Cat., Milan, Tarquinia, 1999, p. 92, no.
1983, no. 32, p. 61. 52.

128 129
130 131
35 A double handled albarello with Florentine lily

A
squat, two-handled jar with a cylindrical body and applied twisted Italy, probably Tuscany
handles. On one side is painted a large fleur-de-lys and on the c. 1420-1440
21 cm (height) x 22.5 cm (width including handles) x 14 cm
other the symbols or letters ‘f A E’ in reverse, both appearing (diameter); Tin-glazed earthenware with copper green and
in frames with green and brown decoration consisting of alternating manganese brown on a reddish clay. The interior glazed in a
brushstrokes or brushstrokes and oval shapes. Alternating lines on the lead glaze with a slight addition of tin to make a milky hue.
shoulder. Excellent condition barring some wear to the interior.

Provenance
This handsome albarello represents a rare survival of a class of early Bak collection, New York; sale Sotheby’s, London, 7
fifteenth-century maiolica classified by the eminent pioneers of maiolica December 1965, lot 14;
studies Gaetano Ballardini and later by Galeazzo Cora as ‘famiglia verde’ with Alfred Spero, London;
with Cyril Humphris, London;
(green family).1 The decorative vocabulary of these wares, executed Sackler collection; his sale, pt II, Christie’s, New York, 1
purely in green and brown, was popular across Tuscany but also at Orvieto June 1994, lot 1 (Sackler inv. no. 79.5.2 in red on underside
and in northern Lazio.2 Included in this group are large deep basins, of the foot)
jugs and two-handled jars painted with designs outlined in manganese
Published
brown and filled with copper green. Some have the same high-quality Elisa Sani, Matthew Reeves, and Justin Raccanello,
greyish-white glaze; this feature, combined with the undamaged state of Maiolica before Raphael, Exh. Cat., London, 2017, no. 5,
the present albarello, suggests that it has never been buried, unlike the pp. 60-63; the present catalogue entry is taken from Elisa
majority of early maiolica. Sani’s original discussion of this object as published there.

1, Gaetano Ballardini,
La maiolica italiana
dale origini alla fine del
cinquecento, Florence,
1938, p. 24; Galeazzo
Cora, Storia della maiolica
di Firenze e del contado:
Secoli XIV e XV, Florence,
1973, pp. 71-73; cf.
comparable fragments in
pl. 25.

2, For an example from

Tuscany or Umbria with
similar glaze see Julia
Poole, Italian Maiolica
and Incised Slipware in
the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge, Cambridge,
1995, no. 145; also no. 146
has certain similarities of
decoration.

132 133
The depiction of a lily, with tendrils and pods between the petals carefully
rendered in the ‘bottonato’ style, is typically associated with the city of
Florence. After appearing for the first time on the golden florins from
the mid thirteenth century that spread throughout Europe (fig. 1), the
Florentine lily became a powerful symbol of wealth and personal success,
often found on late medieval works of art. Because of this, it often appears
on early maiolica.3 The prominent placement of the fleur-de-lys on our
albarello may help to connect it to that city or a nearby workshop, and
indeed a comparable motif appears on a large dish in the Louvre decorated
with a lion holding a standard with a lily, which has been confidently
attributed to Tuscan potteries.4 Or it may have served as the emblem of a
pharmacy in Florence; an apothecary called ‘lo speziale del Giglio’ (the
apothecary of the Lily), for example, is documented in the city during the
period.5

Judging by a number of surviving vessels as well as excavated fragments,

the use of a pattern somewhat reminiscent of egg and dart moulding both
above and below the fleur-de-lys seems to have found currency in both
north and south Tuscany at this date.6 A light tone of green is visible on Fig. 1a (above)
Gold florin, struck for the
late medieval maiolica from Siena, for instance that found in the Convento Republic of Florence
del Carmine in the city.7 Late 15th century

3, Cf. Satolli in Romualdo

Luzi and Carmen Ravanelli
Guidotti eds, Nel Segno del 5, See Evelyn
Giglio. Ceramiche per i Welch, Shopping in the
Farnese, Exh. Cat., Viterbo, Renaissance: Consumer
1993, pp. 36–54, showing cultures in Italy 1400-1600,
several examples of archaic New Haven and London,
maiolica with a lily from 2005, p. 156.
Orvieto and Viterbo.
6, See Cora 1973, pls.
4, See Timothy 45–46, 50–52.
Wilson, Maiolica. Italian
Renaissance Ceramics in 7, See Riccardo
the Metropolitan Museum Francovich and Marco
of Art, New York, 2016, Valenti eds, C’era una
p. 58; Jeanne Giacomotti volta: La ceramica medieval
Catalogue des majoliques nel convent del Carmine,
des musées nationaux, Paris, Exh. Cat., Siena, Santa
1974, p. 10 no. 27. Maria della Scala, 2002.

134 135
36 Basin with a fantastical beast

A
shallow-sided basin with two horizontal loop handles applied Italy, Florentine region, probably Montelupo
c. 1420-1440
under the rim. In its broad central well the figure of a human-
headed dog stands in profile amongst slender, uprooted plants 38.4 cm (diameter) x 6.4 cm (height); Tin-glazed
whose branches terminate alternately in berries and leaves. Encircling the earthenware painted with green, blue, and manganese
animal on the near-vertical sides of the basin is a design of blue palmettes brown on a buff-coloured clay, the reverse unglazed.
Reconstructed from multiple fragments. Flake losses to glaze
strung on a thin manganese vine.
around the rim, with some areas of inpainting.

This is a rare and important survival of fifteenth-century polychromatic Provenance

maiolica. It is one of a small group of vessels and other fragments found Frizzi Baccione Collection, Florence;
Private collection, Lastra a Signa, Florence
at sites across Tuscany that Galeazzo Cora first classified as ‘famiglia
tricolore’ to describe their luminous three-colour palette of manganese Published
purple, copper green and cobalt blue.1 For many years the only known Marini, Marino, Passione e Collezione: Maioliche e
examples of three-colour maiolica have been a large dish with an ceramiche toscane dal XIV al XVIII
secolo, Exh. Cat., Florence, pp. 66–67 no. 28
undulating rim depicting two lovers in the Musée des Antiquités in Rouen
(fig. 1), and a reconstructed basin in the British Museum (fig. 2), but
recent excavations and stratified finds in the pottery-producing towns of
Montelupo, Bacchereto, and San Salvatore a Viano near Florence have
greatly added to the known corpus of material and have helped to confirm
Cora’s dating of the tricolore group to a period roughly spanning the first
third of the fifteenth century.2 Many of the class of wares to which our
basin belongs – also traditionally described as ‘archaic maiolica’ – depict
fantastical figures drawn from medieval bestiaries and Romanesque
sculpture. Our grandly-scaled example attests to the refinement that
such creatures underwent in tricolore maiolica production, the beast’s
elegant profile here wittily embellished with the attributes of a collar
and hat. Similar beasts can be found on other examples of three-colour

Fig. 1 (above)
Tricolore plate
Italy, Florentine district
c. 1420-1440
Rouen, Musée des Antiquités

1, Galeazzo Cora, Storia

della maiolica di Firenze e
del contado: Secoli XIV e
XV, Florence, 1973, I, p. 71.

2, Cora 1973, I, p. 71, II,

fig. 42, pls. 41c, 43, 44a;
For recent scholarship on
excavated material see
Alessandro Bettini, La
sala delle ceramiche di
Bacchereto: nel Museo
archeologico di Artimino,
dal 27 giugno 1992,
Florence, 1992, pp. 52–55
nos. 95–105.

136 137
maiolica, including a fragmentary jug, one other bowl of comparable
type, and several sherds found in Montelupo and Bacchereto.3 Also
common to three-colour maiolica in particular is the rather charming use
of uprooted plant motifs, which represent a very different conception of
foliate decoration to the type more commonly found on the more or less
contemporary blue zaffera wares from Tuscany and Lazio. A number of
fragments reproduced in Fausto Berti’s authoritative five-volume study
and now in the Museo Archeologico e della Ceramica in Montelupo, were
found in 1994 during excavations in a kiln under a house on the Piazza
dei Gelsi. Consistent aspects of their design are the inclusion of elegant
circular garlands that serve to frame the imagery within, blue berries
encircled by smaller manganese dots, and uprooted plants that appear to
float against the background.4 Indeed, such is the aesthetic homogeneity
of the tricolore family as a whole, that it seems likely they were made Fig. 2 (above)
either in a single workshop or by a group of potters working in close Tricolore basin
and sustained contact with each other. A closely comparable dish to ours Italy, Florentine district
c. 1420-1440
in the British Museum, which is one of a number of Tuscan wares dug British Museum, inv.
up in Florence, certainly supports the notion that outlying workshops 1908,0729.6
specializing in three-colour maiolica found patronage amongst the city’s
merchants and inhabitants.5

The size and profile of our vessel perhaps indicate that it was intended
for use as a hand-washing basin for cleansing the fingers between the
courses of a meal. It would be brought to the table and filled with water
scented with the addition of rose petals or herbs, poured from a jug.
Sets of vessels consisting of a jug and basin together are referred to in
contemporary inventories as ‘bacini con mesciroba’ and often formed
part of a sophisticated social ceremony for the diners. They also mark the
beginning of a move towards more and more elaborate dining services –
often made of many different vessels – that would come to define some of
the finest maiolica production of the following century.

4, Fausto Berti,
Storia della ceramica di
Montelupo, Montelupo,
1997–2003, Vol. I (1997),
p. 156; for a number of
parallel vegetal motifs on
other three-colour material
see Cora 1973, pls. 41b and
3, For recent discussion c, 42, 44a.
of the group and the ‘sister’
bowl mentioned here, see 5, Dora Thornton and
Elisa Sani, Matthew Reeves, Timothy Wilson, Italian
and Justin Raccanello, Renaissance Ceramics:
Maiolica before Raphael, A catalogue of the British
Exh. Cat., London, 2017, Museum collection, London,
nos. 3-4, pp. 52-59. 2009, p. 43 no. 21.

138 139
37 A small jug with relief blue decoration

F
our horizontal bands of geometric shapes in blue cobalt glaze, each Italy, Florentine region, probably Montelupo
band alternating from those above and below in being composed c. 1420-1440
of either triangles or lozenges, almost completely fill the paintable 14.5 x 14.4 x 12.8 cm; Tin-glazed earthenware with cobalt
surface of this beautiful little jug. Only the uppermost band, which blue and manganese purple on a light buff body. Potted with
encircles the neck, reaches as far as the handle on the reverse, the others a strap handle, bulbous body and narrow neck giving onto
are separated from it on both sides by vertical panels of manganese lines, a flaring rim with a sharply pinched spout. The interior lead
glazed. A single firing scar on the front of the body, some
grouped in threes around a central serpentine chain motif. Double lines running to the glaze and splashes on the underside of the
of manganese are also used to separate the motifs in blue and enclose the foot. Broken and repaired across the body.
whole design at the top and bottom.
Provenance
A manuscript in Bologna dating from the early fifteenth-century describes Private collection, Bari, until;
Their sale, Hampel, Munich, 27th June 2013, lot 557
a blue ‘raised in the Florentine manner’, which undoubtedly means the
thick, relief blue used to decorate this precious jug and other wares of Published
its type.1 Zaffera as it is today known, derives from the Arabic alsafra, Elisa Sani, Matthew Reeves, and Justin Raccanello, Maiolica
either meaning brilliant, or originating from the Arabic term for the cobalt before Raphael, Exh. Cat., London, 2017, no. 7, pp. 68-69
mineral from which the pigment was made. This astonishing colour had
been introduced to Tuscan potters in the late 1300s and would become the
dominant decorative idiom in maiolica design over the next seventy-five
years or so.

1, ‘azzurro relevato a
mode fiorentino’, cited in
Dora Thornton and Timothy
Wilson, Italian Renaissance
Ceramics: a catalogue
of the British Museum
collection, London, 2009,
p. 47.

140 141
Zaffera is the earliest class of maiolica that has survived in large quantities
above ground, but even so no earlier examples of intact vessels of this
type have come down to us. Its squat shape is a characteristic feature
of jugs believed to have been made in Montelupo during the first three
decades of the fifteenth century, of which a related example with extensive
restoration to its spout is in the collection of Cesare Ugolini.2 Ours is
especially remarkable for the abstract, geometric nature of its ornament,
which is comparatively rarer than the so-called ‘oak leaf’ decoration
common to the majority of early zaffera maiolica to have survived (see
the following object in this catalogue). Perhaps influenced by Islamic art-
forms such as geometric intarsia work and woven carpets, its ingenious
and sophisticated pattern is a perfect expression of how early potters
exploited the balance and contrast between the deep blue of the cobalt and
the white tin-glaze beneath. Its decoration, but not its shape, is perhaps
most comparable to an example in the Museo Nazionale in Florence,
which was acquired for the museum by the early connoisseur of pre-
Renaissance maiolica Charles Fairfax Murray, in 1890.3

The acute pinching of the spout was evidently made using a thin tool or
stick rather than the more rapid and approximate method of depressing the
rim with the fingers alone, suggesting that its potter took great care in its
production.

2, Fausto Berti,
Capolavari della maiolica
rinascimentale. Montelupo
‘fabbrica’ di Firenze 1400-
1630, Exh. Cat., Florence,
Palazzo Medici Riccardi,
2002, p. 53, no. 1; for
dating, and for the jug in the
Ugolini collection see Ibid.,
pp. 51-3; For the shape in
Tuscan pottery see Fausto
Berti, Storia della ceramica
di Montelupo, Montelupo,
1997-2003, Vol. 1 (1997), p.
348, no. 68.

3, Giovanni Conti et.al.,

Zaffera et similia nella
maiolica italiana, Viterbo,
1991, p. 59, cat. 1; Galeazzo
Cora, Storia della maiolica
di Firenze e del contado:
Secoli XIV e XV, Florence,
1973, 104b.

142 143
38 Large relief-blue storage or pharmacy jar with leopards

T
his imposing two-handled storage jar (orciolo) is among the Italy, Florentine region, probably Montelupo
c. 1420-1440
few large and finely potted examples of early Tuscan maiolica
dominated by the use of vivid cobalt blue decoration to have 27 cm (height) x 30.8 cm (diameter including handles); Tin-
survived, and is an important document of one of the most important glazed earthenware with cobalt blue and manganese purple
developments in Italian ceramics of the whole fifteenth century. Its on a reddish body, with a short flaring neck and a flat base.
A thick lead glaze lines the interior. The handles restored,
ridged, ear-shaped handles divide the jar into two scenes, each of which is
repainting to flaked losses across the body.
decorated with a single leopard passant outlined by a tight-fitting ‘contour
panel’. The animals’ profiles are delineated with manganese purple Provenance
and filled in using a dark grey-blue confined to discrete zones whose Stefano Bardini collection, Florence; his sale, Christie,
Manson and Woods, London, 26–30 May 1902, lot 471 (see
wriggling edges are also described in manganese. Their mouths open to
fig. 2);
reveal curling tongues below a row of teeth, and their necks and forelegs Private collection, Bari, until;
are embellished with linear patterns, also in manganese. Around both Their sale, Hampel, Munich, 27th June 2013, lot 547
cartouches, thin branches project inwards from the framing borders on
Published
either side of the scene, sprouting large blue ‘oak leaves’ and occasional
Elisa Sani, Matthew Reeves, and Justin Raccanello, Maiolica
floating dots. There is a design of chevrons alternating with dots running before Raphael, Exh. Cat., London, 2017, no. 6, pp. 64-67
around the neck, and long sinusoidal lines with further dots running
vertically down the outside of each handle; below the point at which the
handles spring from the body is the mark of a ladder with concave sides.

The raised surface of the blue glaze, also known by the nomenclature
zaffera a rilievo, was created by mixing lead with large amounts of
imported blue cobalt pigment, which, during firing, did not melt fully into
the tin glaze below but instead remained proud of the surrounding surface.
As with our example, the majority of wares decorated with this technique
incorporate broad, leafy decoration whose design defies classification but
would seem to draw on orientalizing patterns and contemporary textiles,
of which the famous Perugia tablecloths offer striking parallels (fig. 1).1

Fig. 1 Fig. 2 (next spread)

Detail of a so-called 'Perugia Our jar photographed at top
tablecloth' decorated with centre of a group of Italian
wyverns, griffins and figures maiolica vessels at the time
Italy, Umbria of its sale from the Bardini
15th-16th century collection in 1902

1, Anna Moore Valeri,

‘Florentine “zaffera a
rilievo” maiolica: a new
look at the “Oriental
influence”’, in Archeologia
medievale, Vol. II (1984),
pp. 477-500.

144 145
146 147
One of the first studies devoted to blue-glazed maiolica, a pioneering
1903 publication by the English Pre-Raphaelite painter and collector
Henry Wallis (fig. 3), first categorized these vegetal patterns as ‘oak
leaf’, a term that, whether accurate or not, has remained useful in
describing them ever since.2 Jars intended for use as storage vessels and
pharmaceutical containers were decorated with these ‘oak leaf’ designs
across north-central Italy, but especially in Tuscan workshops, from
the late fourteenth century up until the middle of the fifteenth. Their tin
glazes, applied both to the interior and the exterior of the vessels, are
impermeable to dirt and moisture, and are therefore perfectly suited to
the preservation of foodstuffs and remedies. Contemporary depictions in
paintings and on maiolica wares themselves show that they were stopped
with paper or oiled cloth tied around the neck and held from slipping off
by the flanged profile of the rim.3

The large, strutting leopards decorating either side of our jar were the
speciality of a workshop which identified itself with a ladder-like mark
painted in manganese pigment beneath the handles of their vessels.4
This workshop was almost certainly based in Montelupo, since other
Fig. 3 (above)
wares firmly attributable to that centre through stylistic comparison to
One of Henry Wallis’s
excavated material also incorporate the ladder mark.5 In his 1973 survey drawings for his 1903
of early Tuscan maiolica, Galeazzo Cora brought together a small number publication on ‘oak-leaf’
of jars with leopards in their designs, all of which incorporate the same jars, showing a closely
comparable vessel
workshop mark and relate closely on stylistic terms. Two such jars with
(probably from the same
blue decoration of a similarly large scale and shape are known; one pharmacy set) then in the
resides in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the other was published Osma collection
by Cora when it was in the Osma collection.6 Besides these, there are
also three much smaller jars that incorporate analogous leopards and
ladder marks under their handles, two in museums and a third in a
private collection.7 A number of elements in the decoration of each of
these vessels bear close comparison to our jar and suggest they were all
made by a single potter or a workshop using shared patterns. Especially
suggestive of this is the way in which the animals’ bodies are painted in
zones of blue and white that in places describe a trefoil or lobed motif.
This is not confined to those vases incorporating leopards, but can also be
found on another surviving example from the same workshop decorated
with a bird on each side, also from the Osma collection and of similarly
substantial size.8

In their ambition, their fineness of potting, and their elegantly shaped

form, the grandest of the surviving leopard jars, including ours, parallel
the very finest zaffera wares to have survived from any workshop of the
7, For the large jars
period. see Bernard Rackham,
Catalogue of Italian
Maiolica, 1940 (1977 ed.),
no. 35, and Cora 1973,
2, Henry Wallis, Oak-Leaf pls. 72 and 73a and c. Of
Jars, London, 1903, p. xx. the small jars one is at the
MIC, Faenza, for which
3, See for example a see Conti et al. 1991, p.
5, Cf. Galeazzo Cora, 255 no. 67, and another
tile from the floor of the
Storia della maiolica di is in a Florentine private
Convent of San Paolo in
Firenze e del contado: collection, for which see
Parma, illustrated in Lucia
Secoli XIV e XV, Florence, Cora 1973, pl. 73b. The
Fornari Schianchi, Ai piedi
1973, pls. 141b, 352, M third is in the National
della Badessa, Parma, 1988,
240-43. Cora hypothesized Museum in Dublin, and
pl. 37.
that the ladder mark related I am grateful to Timothy
4, Alinari and Berti instead to the Florentine Wilson for his having
in Giovanni Conti et.al., district of Scala, situated on brought this example to my
Zaffera et similia nella the left bank of the river. attention.
maiolica italiana, Viterbo,
1991, p. 45. 6, Cora 1973, pls. 72, 74 8, Cora 1973, pl. 67.

148 149
39 A small two-handled sewing bowl or scodella

A
n early two-handled scodella – a form of porringer or small Italy, Emilia-Romagna, possibly Faenza
serving bowl – with ear-shaped handles and vertical sides, the c. 1430
interior painted in blue and manganese with an oak-leaf spray, and
11.5 cm (diameter) x 5.5 cm (height including handles); Tin-
the exterior with false ribbing in manganese. glazed earthenware with manganese brown and cobalt blue
on a pale buff body, potted with a short, everted foot. The
The absence of impasto and the fact that the coloured decoration was handles restored. Repaired chips to the rim.
applied at the same time as the white glaze supports a suggestion made
by Bernard Rackham when he discussed the present vessel with its Provenance
then owner on 16th September 1960 that it is unlikely to be Tuscan, and John Scott-Taggart collection, by 1960 and until;
might therefore originate from Faenza. Certainly, the radiating arcs His sale, The Collection of Italian Maiolica formed by the
of manganese glaze in the well of our scodella are dissimilar to the late Wing-Commander John Scott-Taggart, M.C., Christie’s
London, Monday April 14th, 1980, lot 3;
decoration normally displayed on the majority of Tuscan wares of this English private collection;
early date, and its round berry-like motifs swaying on slender stalks are Sworders 9th September 2014, lot 1
closely analogous to a group of early vessels and sherds found in Faentine
contexts (fig. 1).

Fig. 1
Boccale
Italy, Emilia-Romagna,
Faenza
First half 15th century
13 cm (height) x 10 cm
(diameter)
Faenza, Museo
Internazionale della
Ceramiche, inv. 5101

150 151
40 A 'Santa Fina' jug inscribed with the letters YHS

A
small jug with a robust, pear-shaped profile, a broad strap handle
splashed with green, and a refined central spout framed by
pronounced depressions on either side that make tangible the
Italy, Florentine region, probably Montelupo
c. 1480

19.5 cm (height) x 12.9 cm (diameter) x 15 cm (depth

push and presence of the potter. On the front of the body, a large circular including handle); Tin-glazed earthenware painted with
medallion of yellow sun rays encloses the letters Y H S, which appear green, purple, blue and yellow on an off-white body. Repairs
to the handle and spout, and chips to the body and base. The
against a white ground amongst a grid of fine dots. Around the medallion interior is lightly tin-glazed.
is a dense background of ‘parsley leaf’ decoration, consisting of blue
hexfoil leaf motifs that emanate from vertical branches amidst manganese Provenance
tendrils dotted here and there with orange. Above the foot and below the Private collection, Bari, until;
Their sale, Hampel, Munich, 27th June 2013, lot 515
rim of the jug is a double border of green and yellow that visually hold the
rest of the design in place. Published
Elisa Sani, Matthew Reeves, and Justin Raccanello, Maiolica
The profuse vegetal ornament on this densely ornamented jug, composed before Raphael, Exh. Cat., London, 2017, no. 14, pp. 94-97
in regular bands punctuated by thin vertical ‘stems’, show the complete
integration and imitation of Valencian motifs in Tuscan pottery production
during the second half of the fifteenth century. It represents a local attempt
to replicate the extraordinary lustred trelliswork decoration found on
Manises-made vessels of the type exemplified by the grand ‘IHS’ charger
in this catalogue (see Cat. 22). Contemporary records indicate that such
designs were known in Italy as ‘fioralixi’ (a name derived from the French
‘fleur-de-lys’).1 While Tuscan potters clearly strove to compete with the
import market for Spanish lustred ceramics by copying their designs so
closely, they had to do so without the knowledge or skill to produce their
prized metallic surfaces; one of the first collectors of early Italian maiolica

Fig. 1
Detail of The Immaculate
Conception by Carlo Crivelli
1492
194.3 x 93.3 cm; Tempera
on wood
London, National Gallery,
inv. NG906

1, Marco Spallanzani,
'Maioliche di Valenza e
di Montelupo in una casa
pisana del 1480' in Faenza,
Vol. 72 (1986), pp. 164-70.

152 153
in England, the artist Henry Wallis, noted of the style of decoration
typified by our jug that ‘One of the special interests of the ware is that it
shows the Italian way of imitating a fine Moresco pattern, which shows
that they belong to a time when the potters had not found out the lustre
secret’.2 They were nevertheless clearly regarded as important objects of
luxury status; a jug of similar type to ours is prominently depicted in Carlo
Crivelli’s 1492 painting of The Immaculate Conception in the National
Gallery, London (fig. 1).

Most Tuscan vessels incorporating fioralixi (or ‘parsley leaf’ ornament as

it is often called today) in a combination of manganese, blue and yellow
were probably made in Montelupo, and occasionally for Florentine
patrons who had their coats of arms emblazoned on the front.3 The forms
and design of the leaves, the rays of the medallion and the vivid green
glaze of the handle, rim and foot on our example are closely related to
a fragmentary jug in the Fitzwilliam Museum, as well as to numerous 5, Chronology has
depended in large part
other vessels attributable to Montelupo on the basis of mark or findspot.4
on the excavation of the
However, excavations in that town have suggested that ‘parsley leaf’ communal Pozzo dei
designs were not common amongst the potters’ repertoire before about Lavatoi in Montelupo
1480, and thus it came into vogue as its prototype ornament on Valencian between 1973 and 1976, for
which see Guido Vannini,
lustreware had already begun to fall out of fashion in Spain.5 Galeazzo
La Maiolica di Montelupo.
Cora categorized a number of related examples as ‘Santa Fina’ ware, since Scavo di uno scarico di
a quantity of albarelli and other vessels incorporating this pattern were fornace, Montelupo, 1977.
commissioned for the Ospedale di Santa Fina in San Gimigniano in the For an overview of the
development of this type
late fifteenth century, and remained there until the early 1900s (some are
of ware see Fausto Berti,
now in the Museo Comunale in the same city).6 Storia della ceramica di
Montelupo, Montelupo,
The central feature of our jug is the medallion of yellow flames encircling 1997–2003, Vol. I (1997),
pp. 75–78, 210, 326–29.
the sacred trigram of YHS across the front of the body. The combination
2, Transcribed in Dora See also Wilson 2016,
of the two motifs was adopted by San Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444), p. 80; Fausto Berti,
Thornton and Timothy
a priest and Franciscan missionary who is said to have used them as a Wilson, Italian Renaissance Capolavari della maiolica
visual guide to his preaching. The form of the trigram as it appears on Ceramics: A Catalogue rinascimentale. Montelupo
‘fabbrica’ di Firenze 1400-
our jug, with the cusped flourish bisecting the downstroke of the ‘H’ of the British Museum
Collection, 2 vols, London, 1630, Exh. Cat., Florence,
may have evolved from earlier attempts to copy the calligraphic, and at Palazzo Meduci-Riccardi,
2009, p. 55.
times pseudo-Kufic, contraction marks visible over the trigram on some 2002, pp. 133, 138; and
Valencian wares from the first half of the fifteenth century (including Cat. 3, Timothy Wilson,
Poole 1995, pp. 113–14. A
number of fragments with
22), and can be found on a large quantity of ‘parsley leaf’ maiolica from Maiolica. Italian almost identical designs,
Montelupo.7 Renaissance Ceramics in believed to have been found
The Metropolitan Museum in the Montelupo area, are
of Art, New York, 2016,
The manner in which the green glaze was allowed to extend far below p. 80 no. 14; cf. Galeazzo
reproduced in Cora 1973,
pls. 176–77.
our jug’s handle, somewhat comparable in nature to Crivelli’s depiction, Cora, Storia della maiolica
is rare amongst surviving Tuscan ‘parsley leaf’ jugs. There seems to di Firenze e del contado:
Secoli XIV e XV, Florence, 6, Cora 1973, p. 134;
have been no set rule, however, for the fashioning of this detail, and it Berti 1997–2003, III (1999),
1973, pls. 159b, 166b;
may have been one of the ways in which workshops personalized their Thornton and Wilson 2009, pp. 56–57.
products. Poole has suggested that the signing of a contract by 23 potters pp. 53–54 no. 28; Timothy
to supply Francesco Antinori with vessels for the Florentine market in Wilson et al., ‘Italian 7, Compare with a small
1490 may have acted as an impetus for the practice of marking their Renaissance and Later bowl in Detroit, illustrated
Ceramics’, in Bulletin of the in Wilson et al. 2013, no.
wares (a prominent feature of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Detroit Institute of Arts, Vol. 39, p. 88; see also a bowl
Montelupese pottery).8 The hypothesis is a plausible one, not only since 87 (2013), pp. 38–39 no. 9. in the Ratton collection
the co-signatories of a shared contract would undoubtedly have sought illustrated in Lucio Riccetti
any way possible of safeguarding themselves from the repercussions of 4, For a list of analogous ed., 1909 tra collezionismo
e tutela. John Pierpont
collaborative failures, but also because it is possible that they shared kilns ‘parsley leaf’ wares in
Morgan, Alexandre Imbert
so as to spread the high costs of production: therefore marks would have public collections, see Julia
Poole, Italian Maiolica e la ceramica medievale
provided a failsafe way to keep track of each potter’s vessels. and Incised Slipware in orvietana, Exh. Cat.,
While its decoration changed over time, this shape of jug remained the Fitzwilliam Museum, Perugia, Galleria Nazionale
dell’Umbria, 2010, no. 3.18,
popular for many years, since its broad handle, deeply pinched spout, Cambridge, Cambridge,
p. 342.
sturdy shape and comparatively thick, heavy base made for easy handling 1995, p. 114; see also
Thornton and Wilson 2009,
and pouring. pp. 51–55 nos. 27–28. 8, Poole 1995, pp. 114–15.

154 155
156 157
41 A lustred dish decorated with a repeating pattern of
flowers and arabesques
T
his broad, shallow dish is decorated with a symmetrical repeating Italy, Umbria, Deruta
pattern of arabesques radiating with flowerheads spaced at intervals c. 1530
around a gold central disc. It is a design that echoes, and may 38.2 cm (diameter) x 8 cm (height); Tin-glazed earthenware
have been inspired by, the decoration of contemporary inlaid metalwork, with copper lustre and cobalt blue decoration, raised on
especially the repeating geometric motifs, vegetal sprays and knotted a short, cylindrical foot ring, with visible ‘chatter’ marks
bands typical of Mamluk brassware, which was imported into Europe by from the throwing process on the vessel’s light tin-glazed
underside. Repaired breaks across the body, with further
Venetian merchants in large quantities during the fifteenth and sixteenth readhered sections around the rim and areas of in-painting
centuries. The blue flowerheads which punctuate the design are thought across the breaks. Losses to the foot ring.
to have derived ultimately from Valencian lusterware1, and reveal the
indelible legacy of Spain’s ceramic tradition on Italian potters. Provenance
Collection of Dr. Steffen Berg, Germany

Vessels covered with the same pattern were produced at scale in the
workshops of Deruta, an important pottery-producing town situated
around 10 miles south of Perugia in Umbria, and enjoyed huge popularity
for a few short years between about 1520 and 1540. A range of forms
have survived on which this design predominates, including ewer and
basin sets, two-handled vases, bowls of various sizes, and larger shallow
dishes like our example.2 A few more elaborate survivals also combine
its sumptuous ornament with representations of bust-length figures, but
dishes like ours which delight purely in the possibilities of its infinite
repeatability are no less beguiling and creative.3 Indeed, it can be
considered one of the last great moments of pure ornamental abstraction
in lustred maiolica before the famed figurative istoriatio wares of the
sixteenth century took over the market for good.

1, Timothy Wilson, Italian

Maiolica and Europe,
Oxford, 2017, p. 254.

2, Bernard Rackham,
Victoria and Albert
Museum: Catalogue of
Italian Maiolica, 1940
(1977 ed.), nos. 767, 768.

3, Cf. an example in
the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York, inv.
04.9.23, which is painted
with a classicizing head at
its centre.

158 159
42 A two-handled vase with lustred decoration

T
his handsome lustred vase, its pear-shaped body raised high from Italy, Umbria, Deruta
the ground on a flaring foot, belongs to a celebrated family of c. 1515-1535
vessels made by Deruta potters during the first half of the sixteenth 27.5 cm (height) x 24.5 cm (diameter with handles); Tin-
century. They are often referred to as vasi nuziali (wedding vases) and glazed earthenware with cobalt blue and copper lustre
were used during wedding banquets and at other festive occasions.1 They decoration over a dark buff clay. The foot restored. Some
vary in the complexity of their decoration, with the fabulous shaggy minor inpainting and glaze chips to the body and rim.
acanthus sprays on this example making it among the most refined of its Provenance
type, and their broad necks were probably almost always covered with Private collection, Bari, until;
shallow conical lids when originally produced (fig. 1).2 Many of the Their sale, Hampel, Munich, 27th June 2013, lot 532
surviving examples were evidently proud objects of display, since they
are adorned, like ours, with large coats of arms, dedicatory inscriptions,
or marital and familial emblems prominently emblazoned between their
handles. The two snails depicted within bound laurel-wreath frames on
both sides of our vessel may relate to one of several Italian noble families
whose coats of arms incorporate such creatures in their central fields, such
as the Bullo family of Chioggia (Venice), or the Lumachi of Florence,
although the identity of our patron is yet to be identified.

Deruta potters seem to have been the supreme and unchallenged experts
in the production of this type of two-handled vase, creating far more of
them than any other maiolica-producing centre during the period and
utilizing their renowned control of the lustre technique to full and dazzling
effect. Indeed, their skill at crafting such complex vessels is emphatically
underscored by the inclusion of a bulbous, footed vase inscribed with the
word ‘DERUTA’ within the initial ‘D’ of the heading on the town’s 1489

Fig. 1
Two-handled vase
Italy, Umbria, Deruta
c. 1530s
London, Victoria and
Albert Museum, inv.
C.2188&A-1910

2, Bernard Rackham,
Catalogue of Italian
Maiolica, London, 1940
(1977 ed.), nos. 472-
1, Jörg Rasmussen, Italian 3; Jeanne Giacomotti,
Majolica in the Robert Catalogue des majoliques
Lehman Collection, New des musées nationaux, 1974,
York, 1984, p. 71. nos. 633-4.

160 161
tax return, suggesting a community synonymous with ambitious forms
of pottery (fig. 2). The beauty and elegance of such vases meant that they
remained a favoured class of vessel for several decades, and it is therefore
difficult to date them precisely. Nevertheless, lustred Deruta ceramics
decorated in a stylistically analogous manner (several incorporating coats
of arms that allow them to be linked to specific patrons and dates) have
allowed scholars to suggest a core period of production spanning the
period from the late 1510s to early 1530s.3

Fig. 2
Heading of the Deruta
catasto for 1489
Perugia, Archivio di Stato,
ASP, ASCP, II gruppo, 43,
C.5R

3, Rasmussen 1984, no.

40, pp. 70-71; Carola Fiocco
and Gabriella Gherardi, La
ceramica di Deruta dal XIII
al XVIII secolo, Perugia,
1994, nos. 127-128.

162 163
43 A pear-shaped lustred jug with Saint Francis kneeling
in Prayer
A
slender pear-shaped jug, or cruet, decorated with the image of a Italy, Umbria, probably Gubbio
c. 1525
tonsured saint, most likely identifiable as Saint Francis, kneeling
in prayer before a Crucifix with rays of sunshine emanating from 12.1 cm (diameter) x 21.3 cm (height); Tin-glazed
the sky above his head. The scene takes place in front of a small hermit’s earthenware with red and copper lustre and cobalt blue
hut in a hilly landscape strewn with flowers in bloom. Above and below decoration over a dark buff clay, with a pear-shaped body
raised on a short, everted foot ring cut away with a tight
this central scene, geometric and classicizing ornament encircles the jug cavetto at its base. The interior lightly tin-glazed with
in thick horizontal bands divided by rings of cobalt blue. Rich, gold- evident throwing marks. The strap handle connecting the
hued copper lustre is used to fill in many of the design’s large details, but neck to the lower body, and 3.5 cm of the outward flaring
smaller and masterfully applied accents of vivid red lustre pick out motifs rim restored.
including the saint’s ‘widow’s peak’ tonsure, his thick disc-like halo, and Provenance
the hillock on which he kneels. The Cyril Humphris Collection, Sotheby’s New York, 10th
January 1995, lot 44;
The secret of the lustre technique, first introduced to European kilns via A. Alfred Taubman (1924-2015), acquired at the above;
His estate sale, Sotheby’s New York, 13th April 2016, lot 321
Spain during the early Middle Ages, was fiercely guarded by Muslim
potters who, in shortly after 1300, moved north from the Nasrid centres of
Malaga and Almeria to the wealthy trading port of Valencia. From there,
they ingeniously cornered the market for luxury ceramics in Europe for
over a hundred years until Italian potters, who had travelled to Spain as
spies to learn the recipe, successfully started to use it on local wares in the
second half of the fifteenth century. Artists in the Umbrian town of Deruta
were the first in Italy to successfully harness the technique at a large
scale, and in the years around 1500 both they and their contemporaries in
the nearby town of Gubbio augmented the gold hue of traditional lustre
with an even richer blood-red variant. It is in these towns that the story of
Italian Renaissance lustreware finds its greatest narrative.

A small number of very similarly shaped vessels preserved in collections

including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the musée du Louvre have
in most instances been localized to Deruta.1 However, the town’s potters
seem to have more or less abandoned the use of red lustre by the time our
vessel was produced in the 1520s, and it is much more likely therefore to
have been manufactured in Gubbio.2 Saint Francis was a popular subject
for potters in both centres since his home and the site of his veneration –
Assisi – is only a few miles away.

1, Bernard Rackham,
Victoria and Albert
Museum: Catalogue of
Italian Maiolica, 1940
(1977 ed.), no. 467.

2, Timothy Wilson,
Italian Maiolica and
Europe, Oxford, 2017, p.
241; for a recent study of
Gubbio lustre see Elisa
Sani, ‘Reflections on
early Gubbio Lustreware’
in Elisa Sani and J. v. G.
Mallet, Maiolica in Italy
and beyond: Papers of a
Symposium Held at Oxford
in Celebration of Timothy
Wilson’s Catalogue of
Maiolica in the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, 2021, pp.
82-94.

164 165
166 167
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21 April - 20 May, 2022

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