Plate of Castel Durante ware about 1540, with a portrait medallion within a border of oak leaves. This pattern was called “Cerquata” or “al Urbinata,” the oak being the badge of the Rovere house
8, 9. Florence, and evidently nuptial presents: Per fin che vivo, io sempre t'amerò, "While I live, you I love"; the other, a bridegroom and bride exchanging a hearty kiss. Most of these portrait-plates were deep, and are said not to have been delivered empty. Brides received them brimming with jewels; for dancing partners they were filled with fruits and confections; to a lady in childbed was presented a salver containing the sort of chamber service called in French a déjeûner de marié, appropriately decorated with infant legends of gods and heroes; at children's balls, were given tiny plates of sugar-plums, whereon a dancing Cupid sounding his cymbal was often painted. 10. Massa collection,—this has a sadder import: Un bel morire tutta la vita onora, "A beautiful death confers illustration on a lifetime," was, no doubt, in memory of some venerated friend, and might have been used to serve her funeral meats.[248]
But to return to the uses of this pottery. Those who have observed the rich effect of the majolica sparingly displayed in the late Mediæval Exhibition at the Adelphi [1850] may readily admit that, on a buffet lit up by Italian suns, its glowing tints and attractive forms were no mean substitute for the as yet scarce precious metals. Ingenuity was taxed to invent designs and adaptations of an art in which fashion ran riot:—Tiles for floors or panelling; vases of mere ornament; beakers; epergnes; wine-coolers; perfume-sprinklers; fountains, whence there flowed alternately, as if by magic, water or wine of nine varieties at the bidding of the bewildered guests; wine-cups clustered with grapes, through an orifice in which the liquor was sucked, anticipating the American device for discussing sherry-cobbler. Of drug-bottles and pots we have spoken. Sauce-boats, salt-cellars, and inkstands gave rise to endless caprices, in the guise "of beasts, and of fowl and fishes"; and to these may be added figure-groups of saints, grotesque characters and animals, fruits, trees, and pilgrims' bottles.
In the decorations there was generally a consistency, too often lost sight of by modern artificers. Thus, toilet-basins were painted with marine deities, water-nymphs, or aquatic allegories; fruit-stands with fruit and vintages; wine-cups with vine-festoons. Among the oddities may be mentioned tiny tea-cups, into the paste for which was mingled a portion of dust carefully gathered in sweeping out the holy house at Loreto, their sanctity being vouched by the inscription, Con pol. di S.C., "With dust from the Santa Casa." The effigy of the Madonna of Loreto is often affixed, in colour and design on a par with the superstition. A pair of these was shown at the Mediæval Exhibition of 1850, No. 562 of the catalogue, belonging to a Mrs. Palliser.
Having thus considered the various sites and sorts of Urbino majolica, its processes and purposes, we shall mention some of the artists employed upon it. Of these there were two classes, the potter who mixed and manipulated, modelled and moulded clay-clod into an article of convenience or luxury, and the painter whose pencil rendered it an object of the fine arts; latterly, however, these branches were combined, and were carried on by a class of artificers called vasaii or vasari, and boccalini, according as vases or bottles prevailed in their workshops. The little that has come to our knowledge regarding those by whom the early Pesarese and Gubbian ware was fashioned and decorated will be found in a former page. The latter makers of Pesaro and Urbino have more frequently left us the means of identifying their performances in monograms or signatures, usually inscribed in blue characters on the back of plates. But before considering these, we may dispose of the vulgar error which has given Raffaele's name to Italian porcelain. Superficial or romancing writers have often seriously repeated, with purely fictitious additions, Malvasia's petulant sneer, which he was fain quickly to retract, that the great Sanzio was a painter of plates; others have, without better grounds, made him assistant to his father, a potter. There is however nothing connecting him with the ceramic art beyond a loose notice by Don V. Vittorio, in his Osservazioni Sopra Felsina Pittrice (pp. 44, 112-14), of a letter from Raffaele referring to designs supplied by him to the Duchess for majolica. That he did supply such drawings is possible, though discredited by Pungileoni, and, if true, it in no way compromises his status, at a period when high art lent a willing hand to decorate and elevate the adjuncts and appliances of domestic life. This much is certain, that compositions emanating from Sanzio and his school were employed in ornamenting porcelain during the sixteenth century, but they were doubtless obtained from his pupils, or from the engravings of Marc Antonio. Such is the title here introduced from the original in my possession (8½ inches by 7), which is one of the most Raffaelesque I have met with, and which, though not signed, displays the colouring practised by Fra Xanto, the blue and green being deep and well marked, the orange and yellow of the clouds and curtain in metallic iridescence.
In this, as in most instances, the design is somewhat marred by the colours having run when laid on, or during vitrification. The mistake as to Sanzio has been partly occasioned by confusion with Raffaele del Colle, who painted at the Imperiale, and is said by tradition to have contributed sketches for the Pesarese workshops, and also with another Raffaele Ciarla, who seems to have been a potter, about 1530-60. Battles, sieges, and mythological figures resembling the vigorous inventions of Giulio Romano, are not unfrequent; and in the Kestner Museum, I have observed several plates of choice design and Raffaelesque character, especially the Fall and Expulsion of our first Parents, and the Gathering of Manna. But these are satisfactorily accounted for by Passeri's statement, that, with a view to improve a native manufacture which brought to his state both estimation and wealth, Duke Guidobaldo II. took infinite pains in collecting a better class of drawings and prints from celebrated masters, on the dispersion of which, in consequence of their being sought for by collectors, the pictorial excellence of majolica rapidly declined. The first symptom of decay was the substitution of monotonous arabesques, weak in colour and repeated from the type introduced by Raffaele, in place and figure groups and other subjects requiring composition and design.