It is customary to treat the enamelled terra-cottas of Luca della
Robbia, the great Florentine sculptor (1399-1482), and his followers,
Andrea and Giovanni della Robbia and other members of the family, as
belonging rather to the domain of sculpture than of pottery, and this is
right, for there is nothing certainly known of the work of this great
sculptor which connects it with painted majolica. The old theory that
Luca invented the tin-glaze is long since exploded; what he did was to
use coloured glazes made with a basis of tin-enamel on his boldly
modelled terra-cottas--a very different thing,--and it is by no means
certain that he was the first to do even that. The Victoria and Albert
Museum is extraordinarily rich in della Robbia ware of every kind; and
one may see there these beautifully modelled figures in high relief
covered with pure white tin-enamel, set in a background of slatey blue
or rich manganese purple and framed in wreaths of flowers and fruit
which are coloured with blue, green, purple and sometimes yellow. There
are altar vases too, of classic shape with low relief ornament, covered
with the same peculiar blue glaze; these are sometimes furnished with
modelled fruit and flowers; and finally there is the rare set of
roundels painted on the flat with figure-subjects typifying the months;
but the attribution of these remains doubtful, and their method is not
that of painted majolica.
A remarkable development took place at the beginning of the 16th
century, and in the forty succeeding years the highest perfection of
manipulative skill, both in potting and painting, was attained.
Artistically regarded, the elaborate and detailed methods of painting
then adopted are too much allied to fresco-painting to be considered as
fit treatment for enamelled clay; but this view was certainly not
accepted at the time, nor is it subscribed to by many modern collectors;
yet, regarded as decorated pottery, the 15th-century majolica, simpler
and more conventional in design and treatment, is eminently preferable.
The ruling families of northern Italy, who now took the industry under
their personal patronage, clearly inclined to the opposite view and
spared no expense to provide subjects for their pot-painters. During
the first two decades the influence of Faenza was paramount, and though
the encroachments of purely pictorial motives are clearly indicated on
the wares, room was still found for ornamental patterns. The broad rims
of the dishes were covered with beautiful arabesque designs, frequently
including grotesque figures, masks, dolphins and cherubs (see the Faenza
Casa Pirota piece, 1525, Plate VI.). Sometimes reserved in the white on
a dark blue ground and shaded with light blue and yellow, sometimes
traced in dark blue on a paler grey-blue glaze (called _berettino_) or
painted in darker tints on a ground of orange or full yellow, the
Faventine arabesques form a conspicuous feature of the early wares of
this century. Honeysuckle patterns and interlaced lines drawn in pure
white on a toned tin-enamel (white on white or _sopra-bianco_
decoration) commonly appear on the sides of the deep wells of the
dishes, while in the centre is a single figure, a coat of arms, or a
small figure-subject. A similar treatment, without the _sopra-bianco_,
was accorded to the fruit-dishes, shallow bowls on low feet, &c., with
moulded gadroons or scalloped sides, which are generally attributed to
Faenza or Castel Durante. The workshops of Siena were also noted for
delicately painted grotesques and arabesques, with a rich
brownish-yellow or deep black ground. At Gubbio, too, the "grotesque"
decoration was practised with marked success. Other developments of this
style are the "_a candelieri_" designs, in which grotesques were
symmetrically arranged round some central subject, such as a candelabrum
or vase, and "_a trofei_" in which trophies of arms, musical
instruments, and other objects were symmetrically disposed, or arranged
in studied disarray throughout the design; these patterns are generally
associated with the wares of Castel Durante and Deruta. Lovers' gifts,
dishes in which the whole space is occupied by a portrait bust of a girl
or man, with the name and a complimentary adjective inscribed on a
ribbon in the background, were common to Faenza, Castel Durante and many
other factories. Elaborate figure-subjects also were attempted early in
the century at Faenza and with no little success, as may be seen from a
dish in the British Museum, which is entirely occupied by the scene of
the death of the Virgin, after a print by Martin Schöngauer, delicately
painted in shades of blue, and dated about 1500.
In the early Faventine school the outlines of the figures are almost
always traced in blue, even when they are laid on the grey-blue
_berettino_ ground, and blue was the prevailing colour of the shading
and details. In the third decade of the century the style affected at
Urbino superseded that of Faenza. The majolica painter's palette was now
complete; in addition to the primitive blue, manganese-purple,
transparent green and yellow, we find black, white, orange, greens of
varying shades, brown, and a great number of intermediate tints obtained
by mixing the standard colours. All the colours of the majolica of the
best periods were painted on the tin-enamel before the final glazing,
and were capable of standing the full heat of the fire. Such a thing as
painting in enamels on the finished ware and refiring them at a lower
heat was unknown before the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th
century. A true red colour seems to have been beyond the power of most
of the Italian majolists, and was only attained at Faenza, and with less
complete success at Cafaggiolo; the famous red of the Turkish pottery
behaves very indifferently on tin-enamel.
[Illustration: Urbino Potter's mark.]
In the Urbino style, which now became general, the ware was given over
entirely to pictorial subjects, scenes from history or romance,
scriptural and mythological, copied from the compositions of the Italian
painters and usually set in a background of Italian landscape.
Guidobaldo II., duke of Urbino, spared no pains to develop this phase of
the art; the cartoons of Raphael, engraved by Marc Antonio and others,
were placed at the disposal of the pot-painters, as well as the
paintings of Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Battista Franco, Rosso Rossi,
Perugino, Parmeggiano and many more, and these, together with
engravings by Agostino Venetiano, Marco Dente, Enea Vico and others,
were copied, with more or less fidelity, on the majolica. Some of the
painters, as, for instance, Xanto Avelli, were eclectic in their tastes
and made up their subjects by taking a figure here or there from various
pictures. Thus of three figures on a plate in the British Museum,
painted with the Dream of Astyages, one is borrowed from Raphael and
another from Mantegna. These "_istoriati_" wares reached their zenith at
Urbino between the years 1530 and 1560, when the workshops of the
Fontana family were in full activity; but their popularity was very
general, and skilful painters at many other towns produced specimens
that it is hard to distinguish from those of Urbino. Baldasara Manara
was a prolific painter in this style at Faenza; Pesaro and Castel
Durante were little behind Urbino in the skill of their artists, the
Lanfranchi family in the former town having a well-deserved reputation,
while the founders of the Fontana factories learnt their art in the
latter; and a few pieces of considerable merit bear the name of Rimini
as their place of origin.
There will always remain a large number of specimens of majolica which
cannot be assigned with certainty to any particular factory, partly
because the same style of painting was in vogue at many places at the
same time, and partly because of the itinerant propensities of many of
the painters, whose signed works prove that they moved from place to
place to practise their art. There are, however, a few prominent artists
whose touch is sufficiently well known from the examples that bear their
signatures to enable us to classify a considerable proportion of the
finest pieces. First of these is Niccola Pellipario, the founder of the
Fontana family, who moved from Castel Durante to Urbino in 1519, and
worked at the latter place in the factory of his son, Guido Fontana.
There is little doubt that he was the painter of the famous service in
the Correr Museum at Venice, which marks the transition from the style
of Faenza to that of Urbino, and his free figure-drawing, the oval faces
with strongly marked classical features, the peculiarly drawn knees, the
careful landscapes and the characteristic balls of cloud are easily
recognized in quite a number of pieces in the British Museum (see the
Gonzago Este piece, Plate VI.). His pupil, who frequently signed his
name in full, Xanto Avelli da Rovigo, was one of the foremost Urbino
painters, and his work is characterized by bold colouring and fine
figure-drawing, with a marked fondness for yellowish flesh tints. But
Niccola's grandson, Orazio Fontana (see example, Plate VI.), was perhaps
the most celebrated exponent of the pure Urbino style, and his free
drawing and soft harmonious colouring, in which a brilliant blue is
usually conspicuous, are unequalled by any other majolica painter of the
period.
[Illustration: Venetian Majolica Potter's mark.]
Certain characteristic wares of Faenza have already been noted. Those
with the grey-blue (_berettino_) glaze were principally made at the
factory called Casa Pirota, though inferior imitations were also
produced at Padua, and a blue glaze of paler tint was largely used at
Venice. Dolphins are a frequent motive in the arabesque ornaments of the
same Faventine workshop, and many of the wares are marked with a circle
divided by a cross and containing a dot in one of the quarters. A
capital P crossed with a line or paraph is another Faventine mark, and a
somewhat similar monogram, with an S added to the upper part, is found
in the wares of Cafaggiolo. It has already been stated that a red colour
is peculiar to Faenza and in an inferior and browner tint to Cafaggiolo;
it was used, according to Piccolpasso, at the factory of Vergiliotto in
the former place. At Cafaggiolo, the factory of the Medici family, many
fine pieces were painted, mostly in the Faventine style; a deep blue,
heavily applied and showing the marks of the brush, was freely used in
backgrounds, and delicate running leaf scrolls in paler blue and
reminiscent of Persian style often appear on the Cafaggiolo wares (see
example, Plate VI). Not a little can be learnt from the ornament on the
reverse sides of the dishes and plates; those of Faenza and Siena are
richly decorated with scale patterns and concentric bands; those of
Cafaggiolo and Venice are either left blank or have one or two rings of
yellow. A few pre-eminently beautiful dishes, with central figure
subjects of miniature-like finish in delicate landscapes with poplar
trees in a peculiar mannered style, are probably the work of M.
Benedetto of Siena. Borders of arabesques with black or deep orange
ground belong to the same factory and were perhaps decorated by the same
hand. The dishes covered, except for a few small medallions, with
interlaced oak branches ("_a cerquate_" decoration), are no doubt the
productions of Castel Durante; and a certain class of large dishes with
figure subjects in blue on a toned blue glaze, and sometimes with formal
ornaments in relief, are of undisputed Venetian origin.
[Illustration: Later Cafaggiolo Potter's mark.]
Another phase of majolica decoration began about the middle of the 16th
century and synchronized with the decline of the pictorial style. The
figure subjects were relegated to central panels or entirely replaced by
small medallions, and the rest of the surface covered with fantastic
figures among floral scrolls, inspired by Raphael's grotesques painted
on the walls of the Loggie in the Vatican. The prevailing tone of this
ornament was yellow or orange, and the tin-enamel ground, which is
always more or less impure in colour on Italian pottery, was washed over
with a pure milk-white, known as _bianco di Ferrara_ or _bianco
allatato_, said to have been invented by Alphonso I., duke of Ferrara,
who took an active interest in his private factory founded at Ferrara,
and managed by potters from Faenza and Urbino.
The new style flourished at Urbino, Pesaro and Ferrara; at the
first-named particularly in the workshops of the Patanazzi family, and
lasted far into the 17th century. But the majolica was now in full
decline, partly through the falling off of princely patronage, and
partly, perhaps, owing to a reaction in favour of Chinese porcelain,
which was becoming more plentiful and better known in Europe. The
manufacture, however, never entirely ceased, and revivals of the old
style were attempted at the end of the 17th century by Ferdinando Maria
Campori of Siena, who copied Raphael's and Michelangelo's compositions,
and by the families of Gentile and Grue at Naples and Castelli. The
majolica of Castelli is distinguished by the lightness of the ware, good
technique, and harmonious but pale and rather weak colouring; it
continued into the 18th century. A coarse and inferior ware was made at
Padua and Monte Lupo; and the factories of Faenza were still active,
producing, among other kinds, a pure white ware with moulded scallops
and gadroons. The industry continued to flourish in Venice and the
north. Black ware with gilt decoration was a Venetian product of the
17th century, and at Savona and Genoa blue painted ware in imitation of
Chinese blue and white porcelain made its appearance. In the 18th
century a new departure was made in the introduction of enamel painting
over the glaze, a method borrowed from porcelain; but this process was
common to all the faience factories of Europe at the time, and though it
was widely practised in Italy no special distinction was attained in any
particular factory. In our own days imitations of the 16th century wares
continue to be made in the factories of Ginori, Cantigalli and others,
not excepting the lustred majolica of Gubbio and Deruta; but, compared
with the old pieces, the modern copies are heavy to handle, stiff in
drawing, suspiciously wanting in the quality of the colours and the
purity of the final glaze which distinguish the work of the best period.
[Illustration: Turin Potter's mark.