Historic Ornament, Vol. 2 (of 2): Treatise on decorative art and architectural ornamentWard, James
History
Historic Ornament, Vol. 2 (of 2): Treatise on decorative art and architectural ornament
Ward, James
Architecture -- History; Decoration and ornament -- History; Decorative arts -- History
In the Cluny Museum in Paris there are a pair of pharmacy jars or vases,
one of which bears the inscription “Faenza,” and the other is dated
1500, their excellence proving that good work was done at Faenza at this
date, or perhaps much earlier. The pottery works called the Casa Pirota
was the principal establishment for the production of maiolica at
Faenza.
[Illustration: Fig. 32.—Urbino Dish, with “Urbino Arabesques.” (S.K.M.)]
Many works from this pottery are in the Kensington Museum, and they seem
generally to be the work of one hand, but there is no record of the
artist. He painted a certain kind of grotesque, and figures of boys on
plates of a wide border. The colours are a light blue on a dark blue
ground, the light blue heightened with touches of white, and shaded with
a brownish yellow. This style is known as “sopra azzuro” and is very
characteristic of the unknown painter’s work (Fig. 33).
[Illustration: Fig. 33.—Faenza Plate. (S.K.M.)]
A fine tazza in the same museum by the Faentine artist who signs himself
as F. R. has the painted subject “the Gathering of the Manna,” after
Raphael.
[Illustration: Fig. 34.—Faenza Maiolica. (S.K.M.)]
The colours used are strong and rich yellows, blues, greens, orange, and
purple tints. This work is much superior to that of another Faentine
artist who used the same initials. An oblong panel or plaque in the
Kensington Collection, 9-3/4 inches in height by 8 inches in width, has
a painting of the Resurrection after a design by Melozzo de Forli,
signed with a monogram consisting of T and B. It is a maiolica work of
the highest rank, carefully executed yet with perfect freedom of
touch—for carefulness of execution in pottery painting very often
implies hardness—and pleasing combinations of blues, yellows, greens,
and golden browns, with little touches of red. Mr. Fortnum thinks it was
painted by the same artist that executed the famous service of maiolica
of which seventeen pieces are in the Museo Correr at Venice. The tazza
at Fig. 34 is ascribed to the Faenza fabriques. It is as much Gothic as
Italian in design, which is the case sometimes in Northern Italian art,
and it has been found also that the “istoriati” maiolica of Faenza has
more of its subjects from the engravings of German artists’ works, such
as Dürer, Martin Schon, and others, than the pottery of any other
Italian fabrique. Maiolica has been fabricated at many other places in
Italy, such as Diruta, Forli, Rimini, Padua, Ferrara, Genoa, and Venice,
but space prevents us here from giving any descriptive notice of them,
further than the mention of the Venetian botegas where many important
examples came from during the sixteenth century. The Venetian dishes of
this time were covered with ingenious and elaborate designs of
interlacing ornament, foliage, birds, masks, with tyings of ribbons or
drapery (Fig. 35). The colour of the enamelled surface is white slightly
tinted with zaffre blue. A low-toned blue colour was employed for the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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