DIMENSIONS: height 17 cm × diameter 10.2 cm × width 3 cm
MATERIAL: maiolica coated with white glaze and painted
This small maiolica jug was made from an ivory-coloured clay body. The base was then coated with a white glaze. Today, its original colours appear altered by a dull grey patina caused by chemical reactions with sulfur compounds present in the well where it was found. These deposits also affected the decorative pigments applied over the glaze, muting the brilliance of the original colours.
Its shape reflects the model used for most Montelupo jugs produced between the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It features a flared disk-shaped foot supporting an ovoid body, topped by a short neck, a trilobed mouth with a flat rim and a ribbon handle.
The decoration, common to most Montelupo artefacts, follows a compositional scheme featuring: a central medallion containing various figurative motifs covering the entire oval field, while animal and phytomorphic ornaments occupy the remaining surface areas of the jug, with the prevalence of a stylized “Persian palmette” motif.
On the jug, the decoration within the medallion, outlined by a black painted oval, a “house” motif appears, typical of Western tradition. At the centre of the scene stands a house with a pitched roof, shown in side view, at a slight three-quarter angle and with only a barely suggested sense of perspective. The contours of the building, strongly emphasized by black outlining, give way to a polychrome treatment in which the white façade alternates with light blue pictorial accents, employed to denote two doors and a window on the central axis, to generate a sense of depth, and to define the pitched lines of the brown roof. The house occupies almost the entire oval surface, partially ‘concealing’ a cylindrical architectural form on the reverse, where small arrow-slit windows are depicted. The building stands on a a layer of green colouration, perhaps representing a meadow, giving way to a sky/azure blue horizon line beyond which a yellow-coloured background stands out. The oval medallion is bordered in ferraccia yellow outlined in brown.
Comparable artefacts have been found in Prato, Rome, Genoa and Florence, and are also preserved in the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza and in collections in the Netherlands. The decorative style and the presence of the mark “R°” - only partially legible on this jug - suggest a dating between the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
When discovered, the jug was in good condition and required only minimal restoration, limited to repairing small chips on the foot and a minor flake missing from the body.
