Maiolica

by C. Drury E. Fortnum

The Tuscan pieces are remarkable for their rich enamel, for the force and brilliancy of the colours, and for the execution and design of the grotesque borders and other decoration; a deep rich blue, a peculiar opaque but bright red, and a brilliant yellow, are characteristic pigments. The existence of the former fabrique has been made known to us only by the inscription of the name on some few pieces preserved in cabinets. From their style and the mark accompanying the inscription we are enabled to detect many examples, some of which bear concurrent testimony in the subjects connected with the history of the Medici family with

which they are painted. The well-known plate (in the woodcut) on which a painter is represented engaged in executing the portraits of a noble personage and his lady, who are seated near, and which were supposed to be intended for Raffaelle and the Fornarina, is a fine specimen of the work of perhaps the most able artist engaged at this pottery. This beautiful example is now in the South Kensington museum, acquired from the Bernal collection.

At Siena also admirable works were produced but we are disposed to think that their inspiration was derived from Caffaggiolo, whence also her potters probably received instruction in the application of the stanniferous enamel. Some pieces of the latter end of the fifteenth century are with probability ascribed to Siena, and dated pieces as early as 1501. Tiles also from the same fabrique are remarkable for the excellence of their grotesque borders on an orange yellow ground, having centres painted with great delicacy: some unusual examples having a black ground to their decorative borders.

Rome and the south of Italy do not appear to have produced meritorious works in this field, during the period of its greatest excellence in the northern and Tuscan states; and it is not till the dispersion of the artists, consequent upon the absorption of the Umbrian duchy into the Pontifical states, that we find a Durantine establishing a pottery at Rome, and producing in 1600 an inferior repetition of the grotesque style so admirable in the hands of the Fontana, half a century earlier at Urbino. The decadence was rapid; an increased number of inferior potteries produced wares of a lower price and quality; the fall of the ducal houses which had so greatly encouraged its higher excellence as a branch of fine art, together with the general deterioration in artistic taste, alike tended to its end.

CHAPTER V.

A revival in the production of native decorative earthenware took place in various parts of Italy, as also in the rest of Europe. The efforts made to imitate true porcelain were reflected by improvements in the quality and decoration of enamelled earthenware, and in the last century we find potteries in various pacts of Piedmont and Lombardy, Venice, Genoa and Savona, Urbino and Pesaro, Siena, Castelli, Florence and Rome, producing wares of greater or less artistic excellence. But although careful drawing is occasionally found, as on some of the pieces painted by Ferdinando Maria Campana at Siena, from the prints of Marc Antonio, and some charming designs with borders of amorini among foliage, and subject pieces of great merit from the Castelli fabrique; and although the “technique” of the manufacture is also of great excellence; the ornamentation wants that masculine power of colouring and vigour of the renaissance, so strikingly apparent upon the better productions of the older furnaces, and the admirable delicacy and richness of effect to be seen upon the earlier works.

The endeavours made throughout Europe to discover a method of making porcelain, similar in its qualities or approaching to that imported from China, had begun in the sixteenth century. In this direction also royal encouragement was of the greatest value, and we find that first in the field of discovery was, as naturally might be expected, that country in which the enamelled earthenware had previously reached its highest perfection. Under the patronage of the Grand Duke Francis I. about 1580, experiments were made which at length resulted in the production of an artificial porcelain of close body and even glaze. The existence of such a production and the history of its origin have been revealed to us only within the last few years, and we are indebted to Dr. Foresi of Florence for having made this discovery, so interesting in the history of the ceramic arts. He had noticed and collected some pieces of a porcelain of heavy nature and indifferent whiteness, decorated in blue with flower and leafage pattern of somewhat oriental style but at the same time unmistakably European, on some of which a mark occurs consisting of the capital letter F, surmounted by a dome. The earliest recorded European porcelain had heretofore been that produced by Dr. Dwight, at Fulham, in 1671, and at St. Cloud in France, about 1695, but the specimens found by Dr. Foresi were manifestly not attributable to either of these or any other known sources. Further researches brought to light a piece of the same ware on which the pellets of the Medici coat were substituted for the more useful mark, and led to a search among the records of that house. Dr. Foresi was rewarded for his trouble by the discovery that the above-named duke had actually caused experiments to be made, and had established a private fabrique in connection with his laboratory in the Boboli gardens. The Magliabecchian library yielded an important manuscript compilation by some person employed by the duke, giving the nature of the composition and details of the production of this ware. The marks on the pieces explained the rest. The Medici arms and the initials F. M. M. E. D. I. I., reading “Franciscus Medici Magnus Etruriæ Dux Secundus,” on one important piece now in the collection of the baron Gustave de Rothschild of Paris, clearly attached it to his reign, while the letter F, the initial of the city, and the dome of her cathedral of which she was so proud, equally pointed to the place of its production.

Another exceptionally fine and interesting piece has recently been acquired in Italy by signor Alessandro Castellani. It is a shallow basin in the centre of which the figure of St. Mark, with the lion, is painted in the usual blue pigment, and in a manner which stamps it as the work of a master’s pencil. What makes this specimen particularly interesting is the existence of a monogram composed of the letters G. and P. which is painted on the volume held beneath the lion’s paw, while on the reverse of the piece the usual mark occurs, as given in the accompanying facsimile. It has been suggested that this monogram may be that of Raffaelle’s great pupil, Giulio Pippi detto Romano, and that, as it has been stated that he occasionally painted upon enamelled earthenware, this piece may be considered as his work. That the design was from the hand of that master is probable, and that its execution was by able ceramic painters is equally so: but Giulio Romano died in 1546, whereas the Medici porcelain does not appear to have been perfected before 1580.