Italian Ceramics: Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection

18

Dish with Saint Peter

Probably Faenza

ca. 1500-1520

Tin-glazed earthenware

H: 4.8 cm (1^7 /s in.)

Diam: 27.3 cm (io^3 A in.)

84.DE.108

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS

None.

CONDITION

Repainted cracks through the body in the area of

the keys, rim, face, and blue background; minor

chips in the rim.

PROVENANCE

Private collection, Switzerland, sold to R. Zietz;

[Rainer Zietz, Ltd., London, sold to the J. Paul

Getty Museum, 1984].

EXHIBITIONS

None.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GettyMusf 13 (1985): 242, no. 170; Hess 1988A,

no. 20; Summary Catalogue 2001, no. 357.

THIS UNUSUALLY SHAPED PLATE with small base and

wide, sloping sides displays a finely painted, striking

close-up portrait of Saint Peter in blue, orange, ocher,

green, and yellow against a dark blue background. The

saint is pointing with his right hand to a pair of keys held

in his left hand, which is out of view; to the right and left

of his head are the initials SP (for San Pietro, or Saint

Peter). The rim inventively forms part of the saint's yel­

low halo, so that the circular shapes of nimbus and rim

complement each other. Saint Peter's cloak is decorated

with a geometric interlace border. The reverse of the

plate displays two manganese purple bands among con­

centric lines in blue on a pinkish white ground. The clay

body is of a reddish buff color.

This plate is one of very few works painted with dra­

matic close-up busts covering the entire obverse surface;

it is virtually unique in its forceful and vigorous paint­

ing. It has been suggested that this piece was produced in

the Tuscan center of Cafaggiolo because a few plates at­

tributed to that city exist showing similarly dramatic

close-up figures rendered with lively brushstrokes in a

saturated palette.^1 Furthermore, the unusual rimless

shape of the present plate appears in Cafaggiolo in the

early sixteenth century.^2 Faenza is more likely to be

the source of this plate, however. Faentine workshops

excelled, even more than those of Cafaggiolo, in vigor­

ously rendered, lively subjects painted in an especially

brilliant and saturated palette. Moreover, although used

in other centers, the reverse concentric-circle design

[a calza, like the threads of a stocking) (fig. I 8A) was

most common in the Faentine decorative repertory.^3

A similar sixteenth-century plate attributed to

Faenza, likewise decorated with the portrait of an apos­

tle (Saint Paul; fig. I8B), is in the Musee de la Renais­

sance, Ecouen (Cluny 2975).^4 Another plate in a private

collection, of similar dimensions and with a large profile

bust of a woman, brings to mind the Getty example.^5

i 8A Reverse.

104