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

19A Reverse.

Galiano.^10 It is unlikely that SP refers to a single artist

since it appears on maiolica spanning nearly a century.^11

It is possible, however, as is commonly thought, that the

mark stands for the "S[tefano di Filippo] P[iero di Fil­

ippo]" workshop and that the workshop continued pro­

duction even after the death of its founders and had, in

addition, a branch in nearby Gagliano.

The mark on the nine objects in the group to which

the Getty tondino belongs is more difficult to compre­

hend. J° might refer to the same artist or workshop pre­

sumed to be named "Jacopo," given that a similar

inscription, Jac°, which is the orthographic contraction

of the name "Jacopo," appears on the back of a masterful

plate depicting Judith with the head of Holofernes in the

Victoria and Albert Museum, London.^12 However, J° of J°

chafagguolo (or, in other instances, I^11 , I, Jn, /.) might

more persuasively signify the word in since the inscrip­

tion in Cafaggiolo frequently appears either alone or in

conjunction other marks (such as SP, Jac°, AF, c 7 and a tri­

dent). Significantly, on one example, the mark appears as

f°n chafaggiuolo accompanied by SP-,^13 here the f°n

might simply indicate the word in rather than the cipher

of a "Jacopo" whose name, in that case, would be mean-

inglessly followed by the letter n.

Whether all nine bowls of the present group belong

to the same or to separate services is not yet known.

Although all nine are of the same shape—indeed, seven

of the nine measure between 24.2 and 24.5 cm in diame­

ter—with the same signature and reverse decoration, the

painting on the obverse displays certain variations. The

rim patterns on seven of the nine examples are very sim­

ilar, including arabesquelike tracings interspersed with

sets of rhombuses enclosing rows of small dots. An

eighth bowl, one of the two in Faenza, encloses the

rhombuses in an elegant circle of interlacing ogives. This

same pattern appears in the well of the Getty example,

surrounding the merchant ship.

Indeed, it is only the rim of the Getty example that

differs in any significant way from the others. Here, in­

stead of rhombuses, the blue tracings surround groups of

finely drawn musical instruments. Similar musical in­

struments, along with spotted coiling creatures in the

well like the one on the Bargello tondino, appear on a

Blue and White Dish 109