ITALIAN MAIOLICA
Whether one is a general collector or a collector of pottery and
porcelain in particular, Italian maiolica will be found to be one of the
most interesting of “lines,” historically as well as intrinsically.
Pottery, both soft and hard, is distinct from porcelain, although the
term “old china” is commonly used to embrace the whole field of
ceramics--unfortunately, I think, as it is of importance to the
collector to be precise in the matter of definitions.
Pottery, as distinguished from porcelain, is formed of potter’s clay
with which an argillaceous and calcareous marl and sand have been mixed.
The wares usually designated as earthenware are soft pottery. It may be
scratched with a knife or file, and it is, generally speaking, fusible
at porcelain furnace heat.
Soft pottery may be divided into four sorts: unglazed, lustrous, glazed,
and enameled. The greater part of Egyptian, Greek Etruscan, Roman
medieval and modern pottery is unglazed, lustrous, or glazed, while the
centuries-later maiolica of Italy is of the fourth sort; that is, an
enameled or stanniferous glazed ware, the art of making which was
originally learned, we may suppose, from either Moorish potters of
Majorca (one of the Balearic Islands) or perhaps from certain Persian
sources.
Italian maiolica was originally called _maiorica_, a name which later
gave way to _maiolica_, as the Tuscans more often wrote it that way,
even when referring to the Island of Majorca, as one may guess
from the _rime_ of Dante, where is to be found reference to
“_Tra l’isola di Cipri è Maiolica_.” The coarser ware of
half-maiolica--_mezza-maiolica_--is not to be confused with the true
maiolica, which is a tin-enameled pottery, lustred, although the term
maiolica is generally used to designate the ware of both sorts.
The Italians ascribe to Luca della Robbia the discovery of the tin-glaze
sometime prior to 1438. We have no dated piece of Florentine or Tuscan
maiolica antedating 1477, and of this year but one dated example. The
next earliest dates--1507 and 1509--appear on maiolica of the Cafaggiolo
_fabrique_.
In the eighteenth century, as Chaffers tells us, Italian maiolica was
called Raphael Ware, as it was believed, for a time, that Raphael
himself had taken a hand at decorating some of it--an idea which quite
naturally originated, as a great many designs from compositions by
Raphael and other great masters appeared on maiolica ware. These,
however, were copied from drawings and engravings. The best period of
this pottery was subsequent to Raphael’s death, which took place in
1520.
A Cafaggiolo plate in the Victoria and Albert Museum possibly depicts
Raphael and La Fornarina watching a maiolica-decorator at work,
suggesting, I think, that had Raphael himself taken a hand at
maiolica-painting that fact would have led the artist of the plate to
show Raphael at such occupation instead of portraying him merely as an
onlooker. Again, Raffaello dal Colle, who designed maiolica for the wife
of Guidobaldo I, Duke of Urbino, may have been confused by early
students with Raffaello Sanzio, the great Raphael.
Of the development of maiolica in Italy, Fortnum says: “In the twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries native wares were produced in
various places, some of which still exist in the towers and façades of
churches, and in the façade of a palace at Bologna. These are
lead-glazed, rudely painted or with single colors, and in some
instances ‘sgraffiato,’ proving that the use of a white ‘slip’ or
‘engobe’ was known in Italy at that period, as affirmed by Passeri, who
further asserts that in 1300 the art assumed a more decorative character
under the lords of Pesaro, the Malatestas. An even, opaque white surface
having been obtained, the development of its artistic decoration
steadily advanced. The colors used were yellow, green, blue, and black,
to which we may add a dull brownish red, noticed in some of the Pisan
‘bacini.’ Passeri states that the reflection of the sun’s rays from the
concave surfaces of these ‘bacini’ at Pesaro was most brilliant, and
hence it has been wrongly inferred that they were enriched with metallic
lustre.”
For many years after the discovery or at least the application of
tin-glaze to pottery in Italy, large works were popular. But before the
end of the first half of the sixteenth century this practice had lost
its vogue. There was, on the other hand, an increased demand for the
tiles, plates, etc., of the maiolica, an encouragement that led to the
establishment of numerous maiolica potteries throughout northern and
central Italy, Romagna and Tuscany leading, and Urbino and Pesaro rising
to importance in the manufacture of this enameled ware. Both Pesaro
and, later, Gubbio, had attained fame for the pearly, the golden, and
the ruby lustre glaze given their wares, that of Gubbio proving the
finest in this respect. Deruta has also laid claim to the introduction
of the beautiful madreperla lustre. A few years ago the author visited
this tiny, out-of-the-way village to inspect the _botega_ of the modern
maiolica-makers, and well recalls the ingenious arguments advanced by
the gifted director in support of Deruta’s claim, which left one
convinced until Pesaro savants in turn sought to appropriate the glory
for their own town.
Fortnum says “the Piedmontese and Lombard cities do not appear to have
encouraged the potter’s art to an equal extent in the fifteenth and the
sixteenth century, and that neither can we learn of any excellence
attained in Venice till the establishment of Deruta and Pesaro artists
in that city in the middle of the latter period.” Fortnum says: “Perhaps
commerce did for the Queen of the Adriatic by the importation of
Rhodian, Damascus, and other eastern wares what native industry supplied
to the pomp and luxury of the hill cities of Umbria; for it must be
borne in mind that the finer sorts of enameled or glazed pottery,
decorated by artistic hands, were attainable only by the richer class
of purchasers, more modest wares or wooden trenchers and ancestral
copper vessels contenting the middle class.” The art of maiolica
flourished likewise in Ferrara, Rimini, and Ravenna. The Umbrian potters
probably did not adopt the use of white stanniferous glaze before the
close of the fifteenth century.
Federigo, who succeeded to the Duchy of Urbino in 1444, was a patron of
the arts and a great collector. After his death, in 1482, his son
Guidobaldo continued Federigo’s patronage of the ceramic art. The
introduction of the maiolica enamel did not, happily, lead to the
abandonment of the metallic colors and prismatic glazes of the earlier
potters. Authorities are agreed that the retention of these metallic
colors and prismatic glazes stimulated maiolica manufacture in other
localities. The botega which Maestro Giorgio established in Gubbio at
this period was probably the great center for the golden and ruby
metallic lustre maiolica. In his handbook, “Maiolica,” Fortnum says:
“Some technicality in the process of the manufacture, some local
advantage, or some secret in the composition, almost a monopoly of its
use was established at Gubbio, for we have the evidence of well-known
examples that from the end of the first to the beginning of the last
quarter of the fifteenth century many pieces painted by the artists of
Pesaro, Urbino, and Castel Durante were taken there for the lustre
embellishment.”
In Urbino the manufacture of maiolica reached its culminating point in
1540, in which year Orazio Fontana, Urbino’s greatest maiolica artist,
entered the service of the duke. From 1580 Urbino maiolica declined.
There are exceptionally fine examples of early Italian maiolica in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and in other public and private collections
in America. These the collector may study to advantage. While the pieces
of supreme importance, like the canvases of the old masters, are not to
be had for a song, still, “finds” are possible, and even later pieces of
maiolica are beautiful and fully worth while. Such pieces, too, with the
interesting history of the earlier objects that inspired them, should
appeal to the collector. Perhaps if Italian maiolica were more studied
and understood in this country it would be more popular with collectors,
but just because so few of them are versed in its evolution the
advantage accrues to the collector who is wide awake enough to look
about him in time. In passing it
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Early Italian Maiolica Plates
Pesaro, 1520-1535 Deruta, 16th Century
Urbino, 16th Century
Gubbio, 16th Century Castel Durante, 16th Century]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
Copies of Roman Millefiori Glass Made in Murano, 19th Century
Two Ancient Roman Millefiore Glass Bowls]
should be noted that there is much--one may well say quantities--of
modern maiolica to be found in the shops. Much of this is very
beautiful, but the collector will soon have no trouble in distinguishing
it from the old, even when the modern happens to reproduce the forms and
designs of the early pieces.