Fragment of a pentagonal tile from the Palazzo Petrucci, Siena: C.127-1927

Titles

Fragment of a pentagonal tile from the Palazzo Petrucci, Siena

Maker(s)

Maker: uncertain

Entities

• Tile fragment
• fragment of a tile

Categories

• Tin-glazed earthenware
• Maiolica

Description

Cream earthenware, tin-glazed on the upper surface. Painted in dark blue, green, yellow, orange, brownish-red, and, on the border tile, black.
Pentagonal with part of the right and left sides chipped off.
The main field has a yellow ground decorated with grotesques: a vase and a mask on a pole between addorsed griffins seated on a bowl, flanked by foliated scrolls. The border comprises a narrow row of oval and circular beads, and a wider row of egg and dart ornament.

Notes

History note: Purportedly purchased in Siena by F. Leverton Harris.

Legal notes

F. Leverton Harris Bequest, 1926

Place(s) associated

• Siena ⪼ Tuscany ⪼ Italy

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1926) by Harris, F. Leverton, The Right Hon.

Dating

16th Century
Renaissance
Production date: circa AD 1509

Note

This tile fragment (and C.128, C.129, C.130-1927) and another border tile fragment which has lost most of its glaze (C.131-1927) formed part of a tile pavement commissioned by Pandolfo Petrucci for the principal room in his palazzo in Siena. The room is thought to have been decorated between 1508 and Petrucci's death in 1512, and three of the tiles are dated 1509. The pavement comprises pentagonal tiles of two sizes, square tiles and rectangular border tiles. Some of the square tiles are decorated with the quartered arms of Piccolomini and Petrucci, with trophies, or with figures in landscapes reminiscent of those by Pinturicchio, Signorelli and Genga. The majority are decorated with grotesques, and the pavement as a whole is one of the most outstanding illustrations of this genre on early sixteenth-century maiolica. Over 300 tiles from the pavement are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and there are 17 in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg.

School or Style

Renaissance