BORGO SAN-SEPOLCRO, DIRUTA, &C.
There is an example of the BORGO SAN-SEPOLCRO ware at South Kensington,
a lamp, formed of faience of a bluish white shade, painted with garlands
of flowers, &c. in colour, on which is written under the foot, “Citta
Borgo S. Sepolcro a 6 Febraio 1771. Mart. Roletus fecit.”
At SAN QUIRICO cardinal Chigi established a work about 1714, inspired
with the idea of reviving the art of painting on faience. It was
directed by Piezzentili, a painter who had given some study to the
celebrated vases by Orazio Fontana. On his death Bartolomeo Terchi,
Feschi, or Ferchi, seems to have worked at or directed the
establishment, for in the Louvre is a plaque representing Moses striking
the rock, and signed “_Bar Terchi Romano in S. Quirico_.” We shall meet
with this wandering artist also at Bassano. With other members of his
family he seems to have worked at various potteries throughout Italy,
and examples occur on which his or their signatures appear, accompanied
only by the patronymic “_Romano_,” and which are of course difficult to
assign to any one of the fabriques at which we know them to have worked.
Ferdinando Maria Campani before going to Siena worked also at this
fabrique; its productions were not sold, but given as presents by the
cardinal.
We have very little positive information in respect to the fabrique of
DIRUTA in the Papal States. Alluded to by Passeri as a pottery near
Foligno where pieces were produced remarkable for the whiteness of the
paste, we are led to the supposition that he may have confounded the
wares produced at other neighbouring localities with those made at
Diruta: and he does not inform us whether it produced lustred wares or
only those of polychrome decoration. A few years since certain plates
came under the notice of collectors inscribed “In Deruta,” the subjects
painted in blue outline, and lustred with a brassy golden colour. Doubt
and uncertainty had long existed as to the spot where the large “bacili”
and other pieces of a well-known and abundant ware, lustred with a
golden pigment of peculiarly pearly effect in certain lights, had been
produced, and the discovery of these signed examples, having a somewhat
similar metallic enrichment, caused connoisseurs to grasp at the,
perhaps hasty, conclusion, that to Diruta must be assigned those wares
of earlier date and hitherto unknown locality, and that Diruta must have
possessed a pottery of very early time and important character. But
after an examination and comparison of signed specimens, and others
which are with reasonable probability considered to be of this
_fabrique_, we are compelled to conclude that the productions of Diruta
were generally inferior to, and in many instances copied or derived
from, those of the Gubbio or earlier Pesaro types.
Castel di Diruta or Deruta is a “borgo” or dependency of Perugia, on the
road from that city to Orvieto by Todi. It is but a few miles from
Perugia, within an easy day’s journey of Gubbio, and although it may be
reasonable to presume that potteries existed there from an early period,
we think it more probable that they derived the use of the lustre
pigments from Gubbio.
It is extremely difficult in many instances to decide with any degree of
certainty as to whether some individual early specimens of the lustred
ware alluded to above, be of Pesaro, of Gubbio, or of Diruta
workmanship. We have little hesitation in assigning the dish in the next
woodcut to Diruta; the dance of Cupids is after Marc Antonio. The
similarity of the process necessary to such productions entails a
corresponding similarity of result, but we notice a somewhat coarser
grounding, a golden _reflet_ of a brassy character, a ruby, when it
(rarely) occurs, of pale dull quality,
[Illustration]
looser outlines of a colder and heavier blue, and in the pieces not
lustred the same tones of colour, a dark blue approaching to that of
Caffaggiolo in depth but wanting its brilliancy, the use of a bright
yellow to heighten the figures in grotesques, &c. in imitation of the
golden lustre, and a thin green. The drawing is generally of an inferior
stamp, and a certain _tout ensemble_ pervades the pieces difficult to
define but which more or less prevails.
The discovery within the last few years of a fine work, signed with the
artist’s monogram, the date 1527, and the place at which
[Illustration]
it was painted, is all we know of the existence of a botega at FABRIANO.
There can be little doubt that many such local and individual furnaces
existed during the sixteenth century under the direction of ceramic
artists, in many instances an emigrant from one of the more important
centres, and encouraged to set up for himself at another city by the
patronage of the leading families. This plate, which has for subject
the “Madonna della Scala” after Marc Antonio’s engraving from Raffaelle,
is cleverly painted, and on the reverse is the inscription of which we
have given a facsimile. It was exhibited by M. Spitzer, of Paris, at the
“Exposition Universelle,” was purchased from him by signor Alffº.
Castellani, and subsequently sold at Christie’s for £114. Another
example by the same hand, and with the same subject but without
signature, was sold at the same sale.
In the museum of Economic geology is a plate of the same botega, having
for subject the rape of Proserpine surrounding a cupid centre. It is
painted in _grisaille_, the sky warmed with touches of yellow, and ably
executed. This fabrique not being then known it was ascribed to Urbino,
but the monogram on the reverse, exactly corresponding with that on the
signed Fabriano piece, proves it to be of the same origin. We also give
this mark in fac-simile.
[Illustration]
The pottery of VITERBO is not recorded by any writer, but an inferior
work at South Kensington is inscribed with the name of the city and with
that of Diomeo, who was perhaps the painter of the piece in 1544. It is
a rough piece, rudely coloured and ill-drawn, but interesting from the
name of place and the date. We give an engraving of a portion of the
border, the hand of a youth holding a scroll. Two other examples are
with some doubt referred to the same locality.
[Illustration]
LORETO is named in connexion with the set of Spezieria vases, of the
fabrique of Orazio Fontana, which were presented to the shrine of our
Lady of Loreto by the last duke of Urbino, on his abdication in favour
of the Holy See. It was the habit to collect the dust gathered from the
walls of the Santa Casa and the dress of the Virgin, from which, mixed
in small quantities with the potter’s clay, cups or bowls were formed
and painted with figures of the Virgin and Child, generally on a yellow
ground. These cups were inscribed outside CON · POL · DI · S · CASA
(with the dust of the Holy House). Occasionally, but less frequently,
some of the holy water from the shrine was sprinkled on the dust,
thereby to impart a still greater sanctity. A cup so made is in the
writer’s collection, and is inscribed CON · POL · ET · AQVA · DI · S ·
CASA (with dust and water of the Holy House). These cups were probably
presented as marks of favour to pilgrims who had visited and probably
enriched the sanctuary. Signor Raffaelli believes that they were made at
Castel Durante, for the establishment at Loreto. The seal of the convent
was affixed to them in red wax.
Hitherto we have no published record of the former existence of a
manufactory of artistic enamelled pottery at ROME, that great centre to
which by her affluence and power at various periods of history artists
and objects of art have been drawn from their native countries. We have
no assurance that purely native Roman art ever attained to any very high
degree of excellence. The Etruscans and the Greeks in Pagan times, the
Byzantine school of the middle ages, and at the period of the
_renaissance_ the great Tuscan and Venetian artists worked in Rome upon
those monuments of genius of which she is so justly proud; but they are
possessions rather than native productions; and it would appear that
even in so comparatively small a branch of artistic manufacture she was
indebted to a native of Castel Durante for the establishment of a
fabrique of maiolica. Had there been pre-existing furnaces, producing
wares of artistic merit, it would hardly have been worth while for Mº
Diomede on the fall of the dukedom of Urbino to bring his art to Rome.
There is no notice of any pieces of this ware inscribed as having been
made at Rome until the year 1600, when we find on two oviform pharmacy
vases of good outline, having each a pair of double serpent handles and
a domed cover surmounted by a knob, the following inscriptions written
on oval labels. On one vase “Fatto in botega de M. Diomede Durante in
Roma,” and on the other, of which we give a woodcut, “Fatto in Roma da
Gio. Pavlo Savino M.D.C.” These vases are decorated on one side with
grotesques ably sketched in yellow, greyish blue, and orange colours on
a white enamel ground of considerable purity; on the other, a leafage
diaper in the same tone of blue covers the like ground. On one only,
immediately above the inscribed oval, the head of a buffalo is painted
in dark blue, approaching to black, and may refer to the locality of the
botega, possibly in the vicinity of the Via or Palazzo del Bufalo. These
vases were for many years in the possession of the Gaetani family, and
were purchased by the writer during his sojourn at Rome in the early
part of 1870. The style of execution is in the manner of the Urbino
grotesque decoration of the Fontana fabrique, but has not that delicacy,
combined with artistic freedom and naïveté, so remarkable in the
productions attributed to Camillo Fontana and other contemporary artists
working some fifty years before; in certain respects they have affinity
to the work of M. Gironimo of Urbino. Numerous examples of similar
general character, but later in date and of inferior execution, are
frequently to be met with in the shops at Rome and prove the production
to have been abundant; specimens are in the South Kensington museum.
[Illustration]
A manufacture of white glazed earthenware, as also of “biscuit”
porcelain, was introduced by the famous engraver _Giovanni Volpato_, of
Venice, in the year 1790. He expended a large sum of money in making
experiments and in the founding of the works, as also in procuring
numerous models which were executed with the greatest care from the
antique, and from other objects in museums, &c. as also from the works
of Canova. At one time no less than twenty experienced artists were
employed in modelling the “biscuit” porcelain to supply the great
demand. Large furnaces were constructed, but the great expense and risk
in the production of pieces for table use necessitated their sale at a
price which could not compete with the French wares, although superior
in the qualities of strength and resistance. The establishment continued
until about 1832, when the works ceased.
The figures and groups in “biscuit” porcelain, of pure white and stone
colour (variations arising from the different degrees of heat to which
they were exposed in the oven) were undoubtedly the more important
artistic productions of the Roman fabrique; but glazed pottery, very
similar in character to that of Leeds or the “Queen’s ware” of the
Wedgwoods and known as “terraglia verniciata,” was also made, and in
this material statuettes, figures of animals, candelabra, vases, and
portrait busts were modelled. There can be little doubt that the finer
examples were produced at the period when the elder Volpato perfected
the establishment, and when his critical and artistic eye directed his
modellers, and many of the figures and groups are admirable for their
grace and careful execution. Few bear any mark, but occasionally pieces,
both of the “biscuit” and glazed ware, bear the name G · VOLPATA · ROMA
· impressed in the clay.
A manufacture of coarse glazed pottery rudely ornamented with figures,
flowers, fruit, &c. in colour, still exists in the Trastevere, which
supplies the _contadini_ and the humbler classes of the city with pots
and pans of various form and startling decoration.