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

2IF Jacopo de' Barbari (Italian, ca. 1460/70-before 15 16).

Woman and Distaff. Engraving. London, British Museum,

inv. 1895-9-15-86. Photo: © The British Museum.

21 G Jacopo de^7 Barbari. Man with a Cradle. Engraving. London,

British Museum, inv. 1895-9-15-87. Photo: © The British

Museum.

Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut (inv. 1917.430),

comprise the third group in the B/B° group, measuring

roughly thirty centimeters in height. The former is dec­

orated with the figure of Venus (after an engraving by

Marcantonio Raimondi of the birth of Venus, which may

have been inspired by a print by Jacopo de' Barbari);^28 the

latter is decorated with the figure of a knight holding

a shield with an unidentified coat of arms.^29 The set or

sets to which these larger jars belong are likely incom­

plete, and the discovery of missing pieces and possible

print sources for the painted images might well clarify

the iconography of the individual subjects as well as a

possible thematic connection among the jars. Identifi­

cation of the coat of arms on the Hartford example would

also be helpful.

On the basis of their inscription, these works were

attributed almost a century ago to the Sienese workshop

of Maestro Benedetto.^30 Their style, however, differs con­

siderably from that of other known works by this artist.

Moreover, marks like this B or B° would normally indi­

cate the workshop in which the pieces were executed,

the pharmacy to which they belonged, or the pharmacist

who used them. A similar mark on a sixteenth-century

albarello from Deruta in the Museo Nazionale del

Two Jars 12 5