[Illustration: FIG. 46--Early majolica plate, in blue and yellow lustre
only, made at Pesaro or Deruta, c. 1500. The motto on the scroll may be
Englished as follows: "He who steers well his ship will enter the
harbour." (Louvre.)]
_Lustred Wares._--The lustred wares of Deruta have marked
characteristics, and, though differing in actual treatment from the
Hispano-Moresque, their appearance is eloquent in favour of such a
derivation. The most characteristic examples are large dishes and
plateaux, thickly made and with the enamel on the upper face only, the
back having a lead glaze. They are often decorated (see fig. 46) with a
single figure or bust in the centre (with or without an inscribed
ribbon), which is usually set against a dark blue background which
covers only half the field, while in the other half is a formal flower,
and in the borders are radiating panels with palmettes alternating with
scale pattern, or some other formal design. The whole style is archaic,
the designs being heavily outlined in blue and washed over with a
greenish yellow lustre, with beautiful opalescent _reflets_ recalling
mother of pearl. The lustre varies from this _madreperla_ tint to a
brassy metallic yellow, and parts of the ornament are sometimes modelled
in low relief. In spite of its archaic appearance, the Deruta lustred
wares are scarcely older than the 16th century, and the style was
continued as late as the second half of that century. Deruta pottery was
not always lustred, and some of the pieces signed by the painter El
Frate, who flourished between 1541 and 1554, are without the lustre
pigment, though showing the heavy blue outlines of the lustred wares.
The lustred majolica of Gubbio owes its celebrity almost entirely to the
work of one man, Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, who came thither from Pavia,
with his brothers Salimbene and Giovanni, and obtained citizenship in
1498. His earliest efforts were in the direction of sculpture, and some
of his reliefs in the style of della Robbia are still in existence;
indeed the earliest dated piece of lustred majolica attributed to him is
a plaque of 1501, with the figure of St Sebastian in relief, in the
Victoria and Albert Museum. It is not known whence he learnt the secret
of the beautiful transparent ruby lustre peculiar to Gubbio. A red or
rosy lustre is found in both Persian and Hispano-Moresque wares, and no
doubt the process was learnt from some Moslem potter and developed by
Giorgio to unusual perfection. Golden, yellow, brown and opalescent
lustres were also freely used at Gubbio, the ruby being only sparingly
applied. Finished painted pieces were sent from other factories to
receive the addition of lustre at Gubbio, but these can almost always be
distinguished from the true Gubbio wares, in which the lustre is an
integral part of the decoration. Apart from the lustred enrichment, the
majolica of Gubbio has few distinctive qualities, for its styles were
various and almost all borrowed (see fig 47). The archaic taste of
Deruta, the arabesques and grotesques of Faenza and Castel Durante, and
in a lesser degree the "_istoriato_" style of Urbino, reigned in turn.
Perhaps the most characteristic paintings of Maestro Giorgio are the
central medallions of cups and deep dishes enclosing a single figure of
a child or a cupid in _grisaille_. Giorgio's larger figure compositions,
if indeed his signature in lustre may be taken to imply that he painted
the designs as well as lustred them, show great inequality, some rising
to a very high standard--as the dish with "the Three Graces" in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, and the "Bath of Nymphs" in the Wallace
collection--while in others the figure drawing is quite inferior. The
arabesques and grotesques on the Gubbio wares are usually of great
merit. There are a few known pieces of unlustred Gubbio wares with
figure subjects, painted chiefly in blue and in the style of the early
Faventine artists. After 1517, when we may assume that the lustre
process was thoroughly mastered, the Gubbio wares were usually signed
with the initials or full name of Maestro Giorgio, and a few rapidly
executed scrolls in lustre completed the decorations of the reverse of
the plates and dishes. The master's latest signed work is dated 1541,
and he died in 1552. It is probable that his brother Salimbene assisted
him, and Piccolpasso names his son Vincentio as possessor of the lustre
secret. Possibly the latter was the painter who signed his wares with
the initial N, but this conjecture rests solely on the ingenious, but
unsupported notion that N is a monogram of the first three letters of
the name Vincentio. Other initials, M, D, R, also occur on Gubbio
plates, and the latest dated example of the ware is signed by one
"Mastro Prestino" in 1557, but it has little to recommend it save that
it is enriched with the Gubbio lustres, which after this time entirely
disappear.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--Gubbio plate, with portrait in ruby lustre and
blue outline. (Victoria and Albert Museum.)]
[Illustration: Gubbio Potters' marks.]
The old majolica shapes are briefly as follows:--among the earliest
are small bowls (_scodette_), often with flattened sides; jugs
(_boccali_) with large lip-spouts, and mouths pinched into trefoil
form; large dishes with gradually shelving sides (_bacili_), or with
flat broad rims and deep centres; akin to these are the plateaux with
a raised flat disk in the centre; small dishes with broad flat rims
and deep though narrow central walls (_tondini_), suitable for handing
a wine-glass or sweetmeats; flat trencher-shaped plates (_piatti_ or
_taglieri_); saucer-shaped dishes on low feet and sometimes with
moulded sides (_tazze_ or _fruttieri_) suitable for holding fruit.
Among the vase forms ovoid shapes with short necks and a pair of flat
handles are common in the Tuscan wares of the 15th century; the jars
for confectionery, drugs, or syrups were often of the cylindrical form
with graceful concave sides known as the "_albarello_," in shape of
Eastern origin, and in name perhaps derived from the Persian _el
barani_ (a vase for drugs, &c.); other vase forms with spouts and
handles were used for the same purpose; ornamental vases after
classical designs (_vasi a bronzi antichi_); and in the best Urbino
period a great variety of fanciful forms--ewers, vases, cisterns,
shells, salt-cellars, ink-pots, &c., with applied masks and serpentine
handles, were made in the exuberant taste of the time. A complex piece
of furniture for the bedside of ladies in childbirth (_vaso
puerperale_) consisted of a bowl with a foot surmounted by a flat
trencher on which fitted an inverted drinking-bowl (_ongaresca_); and
above this again a salt-cellar with cover. Many of these shapes were
suited to daily use, but the richly decorated majolica was designed to
adorn the walls, the _credenze_, table-centres and cabinets of the
rich. This alone could have been the destination of the large dishes
(_piatti di pompa_) with rim pieces for suspension, and the smaller
dishes (_coppe amatorii_) with portraits of young men and girls and
lovers' symbols; and it is inconceivable that the costly lustred wares
of Gubbio or the fine _madreperla_ dishes of Deruta were designed for
anything but decorative use. The ware was in fact an article produced
for the wealthy in the century of Italy's glory, and under no other
conditions could such magnificent and expensive pieces have been made.
_Technical Methods._--This is a convenient place to give an account of
the methods used by the early medieval potters--(1) because they
represent what had been learnt from Roman times to the 16th century,
and indeed to the introduction of modern methods, (2) because, besides
all that a potter could derive from an examination of the wares, we
have ample written accounts of the methods and processes followed by
the Italian majolist. Mr Solon has recently published an epitome of
the account given in Biringuccio's _La Pyrotechnica_ (Venice, 1540),
and there is the memorable MS. of Piccolpasso, a potter of Castel
Durante, now in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which,
besides giving an account of the processes, contains illustrations of
kilns, mills, decorative motives, &c.[16]
1. The potter's clay was prepared from mixtures of various kinds
prepared by (a) beating and picking out coarse particles, (b) mixing
with water, (c) passing through a sieve, (d) drying again into plastic
clay ready for the working potter. The essential point about the
potter's clay of the best tin-enamelled wares, whether Spanish,
Italian, French or Dutch, is that the clays are those known
geologically as "marls," which contain a large percentage of carbonate
of lime. Such clays always fire to a pinky red or buff colour, and
give a ware that is strong and yet light in substance, and on no other
kind of clay does the tin-enamel display its full perfection (see
Deck's _La Faience_). The analyses of certain tin-enamelled wares are
useful as showing the essential constitution of the best pottery
bodies for such purposes.
+----------------+---------+-----------+--------+----------+
| | Delia | Majolica. | Delft. | French |
| | Robbia. | | | Faience. |
+----------------+---------+-----------+--------+----------+
| Silica | 49.65 | 48.00 | 49.07 | 48.65 |
| Alumina | 15.50 | 17.59 | 16.19 | 17.05 |
| Lime | 22.40 | 20.12 | 18.01 | 19.43 |
| Magnesia | 0.17 | 1.17 | 0.82 | 0.27 |
| Oxide of iron | 3.70 | 3.75 | 2.82 | 4.33 |
| Carbonic Acid, | | | | |
| water, &c. | 8.58 | 9.46 | 13.09 | 10.27 |
+----------------+---------+-----------+--------+----------+
2. _Shaping._--The vessels were either "thrown" on the potter's wheel
(which had remained practically unaltered from Egyptian times), or
they were formed by "pressing" thin cakes of clay into moulds, made of
a composition of plaster (_gesso_), bone-ash and marble dust. In the
latter way all shapes that were not circular were made, as well as
those with heavy bosses or gadroons imitated from embossed metal
forms. It is interesting, though not surprising, to note that for the
fine later wares, the roughly thrown vases, when sufficiently dry,
were recentred on the wheel or were placed in a joiner's lathe and
smoothed to a clean and accurate surface. The Greek potters did the
same, and this practice must always be followed where fine painting or
gilding is afterwards to be applied. In the later florid vases of the
Urbino style the piece was built up of thrown parts and moulded parts
(handles, masks, spouts, &c.), luted together with slip when they were
dry enough to be safely handled, and then retouched by the modeller or
vase-maker, a method followed to this day for elaborate pieces of
pottery or porcelain.
[Illustration: PLATE V.
Rhodian or Turkish: 16th century.
Syro-Persian: 13th century.
Rhodian or Turkish: 16th century.
Rhodian or Turkish: 16th century.
Damascus: 16th century.