Fig. 68.—Maiolica Vase, David and Bath-sheba.
On a saucer is a youth kissing a lady, and giving her a flower—Dulce est amare.
On another is a greyhound with a heart in its mouth—Per mento di mia fè in te, etc.
All of these are sufficiently youthful and sentimental to meet the wants of the valentine-makers of to-day.
But the subjects of paintings were not all either divine or historical or amatory. Many subjects painted from the old mythology had a too palpable quality which we more fastidious people might call coarse, if not roughly vulgar; and such subjects do not heighten the pleasure we expect to find in examining these works.
The “Raffaelle ware,” as it is sometimes called in England, had a quality of design which is peculiar, and therefore an example of it may be of service here ([Fig. 70]). The combination of scrolls, masks, Cupids, flowers, buds, etc., which marks this style of work, is found more or less to pervade much of the ornamentation of what is known as Italian Renaissance.