Maiolica

by C. Drury E. Fortnum

The white enamel glaze, having been properly milled and fined through a sieve, is made into a bath with water to the consistency of milk. The pottery baked in biscuit is taken out of the furnace, and after being carefully dusted with a fox’s tail is dipped into this bath of glaze and immediately withdrawn, or some of the pieces may be held in the left hand while the liquor is poured over them from a bowl. A trial piece should show the thickness of glove leather in the adhering coat. The “invetriatura” having been thus applied and the pieces allowed to dry are now ready to receive the painting. This is executed with coarser and finer brushes or penelli, made of goats’ and asses’ hair, and the finest of the whiskers of rats or mice; the ordinary wares being held in the left hand or on the left knee and the finer in wooden cases, lined with tow, to prevent rubbing. A different brush must be used for each colour. The painters generally sit round a circular table suspended from the ceiling so that it may turn round, and upon this the different pigments are placed.

The painted pieces after being dried in a clean place, taking care that the “bianco” is not chipped or rubbed off, are painted with zallulino on the outer edge and are then ready to receive the “coperta” or outer glaze. The liquid of the bath must be thin, as a translucent coating only is required over the colours; into this the pieces are dipped, and being again dried are ready for the final firing.

In a supplement Piccolpasso gives us an account of the manner of making maiolica, and it will be observed that throughout his narrative he has never applied that term to the painted and glazed wares produced at his own botega, or at any of the others to which he refers.

He tells us that he feels he ought not to omit the account of it which he has received from others, although he has never made or even witnessed the making of it himself. “I know well” he says “that it is painted over finished works; this I have seen in Ugubio, at the house of one Maestro Cencio.” The portion of the design which is to receive the lustre colour is left white at the first painting; thus, a figure in a grotesque whose extremities are to be lustred will only have those parts painted which are to be coloured, leaving the extremities merely sketched in outline upon the white ground; these, after the colours have been set by firing, are subsequently touched with the lustre pigment. The process of firing differs from the former one, because the pieces are not enclosed in seggars but are exposed to the direct action of the flames.

The furnace also is differently constructed, the fire chamber square in form, having no arched roof pierced with holes but only two intersecting arches of brick to support the chamber above, the four corners being left as openings for the free current of the flames. Upon these arches is placed a large circular chamber or vessel, formed of fire-clay, which fits into the square brick structure, touching at the four sides and supported on the intersecting arches beneath, but leaving the angles free. This inner chamber is pierced in all directions with circular holes, to allow the flames free passage among the wares. The method of building these furnaces is kept guarded, and it is pretended that in it and the manner of firing consist the great secrets of the art. The scudelli are packed with the edge of one against the foot of another, the first being supported on an unglazed cup. The furnaces are small, only from three to four feet square, because this art is uncertain in its success, frequently only six pieces being good out of one hundred; “true the art is beautiful and ingenious, and when the pieces are good they pay in gold.” The fire is increased gradually, and is made of palli or dry willow branches; with these three hours firing is given, then, when the furnace shows a certain clearness, having in readiness a quantity of dry broom cease using the willow wood, and give an hour’s firing with this; after, with a pair of tongs remove a sample from above. Others leave an opening in one of the sides by which a sample or trial, painted on a piece of broken ware, can be removed for examination, and if it appears sufficiently baked decrease the fire. This done, allow all to cool, then take out the wares and allow them to soak in a lessive of soap-suds, wash and rub them dry with a piece of flannel, then with another dry piece and some ashes (of wood) give them a gentle rubbing, which will develope all their beauty.

“This is all, as it appears to me, that can be said about the maiolica, as also about the other colours and mixtures that are required in this art.”

CHAPTER VII.

We have given in the last chapter a very brief abstract or epitome of the interesting manuscript of Piccolpasso, which offers us a perfect idea of the manner and comparatively simple appliances under which the beautiful examples of the potter’s art were produced in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The rationale of these processes is clear enough and requires no comment; but we may perhaps remark that whereas the fixing of the glaze and colours in the ordinary process is merely produced by a degree of heat sufficient to liquefy and blend them, in the case of the metallic reflection a different effect is requisite, and different means adopted. The pigments consist partly of metallic salts, which being painted on the wares, after exposure to a simple heat for some time, have then directed upon their glowing surface the heated smoke given off by the fagots of broom; this smoke being in fact carbon in a finely divided state has great power, at a high temperature, of reducing metals from their salts; painted on the wares these are thereby decomposed, leaving a thin coat of mixed metal, varying in colour and iridescence from admixture with the glaze and other causes, and producing the beautiful effects so well known.

The various names by which the Italian pottery of the renaissance has been known have in some instances arisen from, as they have also led to, error. “Faenza ware,” doubtless, had its origin from the town of that name, although its French equivalent “faïence” may either be a translation of the Italian, or may be derived from a town in Provence, called “Faiance” or “Fayence,” a few miles from Cannes and Fréjus, where potteries are stated to have existed from an early period. “Urbino ware” and “Umbrian ware” explain themselves as connected with those important sites of the manufacture, while the name of “Raffaelle ware” was doubtless derived from the subjects after his designs, with which so many pieces were painted, and from the grotesques after his manner. A very beautiful drawing of his school, and which has been ascribed to Raffaelle’s own pencil, is in the royal collection at Windsor. It is for the border of a plate, and consists of a continuous circular group of amorini, dancing in the most graceful attitudes.

Scripture subjects are perhaps more general upon the pieces of early date, particularly those of Faenza, on which designs from Albert Dürer, Martin Schön, and other German painters are found, executed with the greatest care; such subjects were also used at Caffaggiolo. The spirit of the renaissance awakening a passion for the antique declared itself in the numerous representations from Greek and Roman history and mythology, scenes from Homer, the metamorphoses of Ovid, and the like, which formed the main stock subjects for the wares of the Umbrian fabriques, excepting always the sacred histories delineated so admirably by Orazio Fontana and others, from the designs of Raffaelle and his scholars. It was among the artists of this duchy that the habit of writing the subject on the back of the piece chiefly prevailed, with specimens of curious spelling and strange latinity. Transmutation of subject is not rare, as the burning of the “Borgo” for the siege of Troy, and others. The forms appear to have varied considerably at different localities of the craft, partaking of a classic origin, mixed with some orientalism in the earlier and gothic forms in the more northern pieces; but upon all the exuberance of fancy and rich ornamentation characteristic of the Italian “cinque-cento” is made evident, as it is upon the furniture, the bronzes, and the jewellery of that artistic period.