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Potter: Unidentified Pesaro potter
Maiolica spouted pharmacy jar, painted in blue, yellow, orange, and purple, with a scroll inscribed `OXIMEL SIMP x', surrounded by fan-like palmettes, dots and arrow-shaped splodges.
Pale buff earthenware. The exterior is covered with very shiny tin glaze, the interior is more thinly glazed, and the base unglazed. One side has a fault in the glaze. Painted in dark and pale blue, yellow, orange, and a little manganese-purple.
Baluster-shaped with cylindrical neck, short upright spout, and broad strap handle.
Below the handle there is a scroll inscribed `OXIMEL SIMP x' in blue gothic script. The rest of the body and the handle are decorated with `gothic' foliage. On the front of the spout there is a palmette and arrow-shaped splodges. Round the neck between yellow and blue horizontal bands of different widths, there are fan-like palmettes, dots and arrow-shaped splodges, and, round the lower part, a continuous fish-bone between yellow and blue bands of different widths.
History note: Alfred Spero, London, £160 with two other pieces.
Purchased with the Glaisher Fund
Height: 24.2 cm
Width: 17 cm
Method of acquisition: Bought (1932-01-07) by Spero, Alfred
Renaissance
15th Century, Late
Circa
1470
CE
-
1500
CE
The inscription on the label, an abbreviation of Oximel simplex was a potion prepared by evaporating to a syrupy consistency, a mixture of clarified honey and vinegar; simplex indicated that the syrup was a simple, as opposed to a composite, type.
The jar was attributed to Faenza in Rackham's 1935 Catalogue of the Glaisher Collection, but has been reattributed to Pesaro on the basis of the similarity of the gothic foliage to that on sherds found there.
Decoration
composed of
high-temperature colours
( dark and pale blue, yellow, orange, and a little manganese-purple)
Base
Diameter 10.5 cm
Rim
Diameter 9.5 cm
Body
Accession number: C.2B-1932
Primary reference Number: 74288
Glaisher additions number: Gl. Add.38-1932
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
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IIIF Manifest
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Pharmacy jar" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/74288 Accessed: 2024-12-22 16:32:43
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/74288
|title=Pharmacy jar
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-12-22 16:32:43|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-74288
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa30/C_2B_1932_1_201407_jas244_mas.jpg"
alt="Pharmacy jar"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Pharmacy jar</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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