Bowl with broad rim: C.104-1927

Maker(s)

Workshop: Maestro Giorgio Andreoli

Entities

• Bowl with broad rim
• dish
• tondino

Categories

• Tin-glazed earthenware
• Maiolica

Description

Maiolica bowl with broad rim, painted in blue and green, and red and gold lustre with a coat of arms, (Di Bate of Florence?) and grotesques

Pale yellowish-buff earthenware, tin-glazed overall; the reverse, pale beige. Painted in blue and pale green, and with red and yellowish-gold lustre. Shape approximately 58. Circular with a broad, gently sloping rim and deep well; flat base.
The central medallion, edged with red lustre and blue circles, contains a shield of broad testa di cavallo form charged with the arms azure a tower argent debruised by a bend gules. The side of the well is gold overall, and the symmetrically arranged grotesques on the rim are reserved in a gold ground. At the top is a mask with a vase of fruit above it and, at the bottom, a winged putto's head above fruit in a bowl decorated alla porcellana, linked by fruit-filled cornucopiae to two monsters who crouch on the right and left. Two narrow blue bands encircle the outer edge. On the back, the base and shoulder are encircled by a wide and a narrow band of gold lustre, repeated in reverse order on the outer edge.

Notes

History note: Alexander Barker; Sir Francis Cook, Bt; Wyndham Francis Cook; Humphrey Wyndham Cook; Christie's, 7 July 1925, Catalogue of an important collection of objects of art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the property of Humphrey W. Cook, Esq., and removed from 8 Cadogan Square, S.W., being a portion of the celebrated collection formed by the late Sir Francis Cook, Bart, lot 25; F. Leverton Harris.

Legal notes

F. Leverton Harris Bequest

Place(s) associated

• Gubbio ⪼ Umbria ⪼ Italy

Acquisition and important dates

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

Dating

16th Century, Early
Renaissance
Production date: circa AD 1521 : this date appears on a piece from the same armorial service in the Lehman Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Note

This bowl with a broad rim belonged to an unmarked armorial service bearing the arms of the Di Bate family of Florence. It was made in the workshop of Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, the leading potter in Gubbio, who was famed for his lustred maiolica. Most maiolica had two firings, but lustre ware required a third, was therefore a highly-prized luxury product. Many examples have their owner's arms in the well, or elsewhere on differently-shaped dishes. The grotesque decoration on the rim was derived from Roman architectural ornament, probably through the medium of prints. At least ten other examples of broad-rimmed bowls (often described as tondini) are recorded, all but one decorated with grotesques on the rim: one dated 1521 in the Lehman Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; another in that museum, formerly in the Blumenthal Collection, inv. 41.100.227; one in the Dutuit Collection at the Petit Palais, Paris; one in the Louvre; two in the Museo Civico, Bologna; one decorated with trophies instead of grotesques, in the Musée des Antiquités, Rouen, one sold at Sotheby's, London, on 21 November 1978, lot 43; and two sold by Christie's, New York, on 12 October 2023, lots 189 and 200. See the Documentation for bibliography. A nineteenth century dish, which differs from the sixteenth century products in having a pinkish-red lustre instead of deep ruby red lustre, is in the City Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent (The Potteries Museum), inv. 98.P 33.

School or Style

Renaissance