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

INTRODUCTION

There were no mortal men until, with the consent of the goddess Athene, Prometheus, son of

Iapetus, formed them in the likeness of gods. He used clay and water of Panopeus of Phocis,

and Athene breathed life into them. Hesiod, THEOGONY

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the

breath of life; and man became a living soul. GENESIS 2: 7

Objects of terra-cotta... fulfill us, giving us the tiles for roofs, the bricks for walls, the recep­

tacles for wine, the tubes for water, and all of those objects which one makes on the wheel

and forms with one's hands. For these reasons, Numa established as seventh college that of

the potters. Pliny the Elder, NATURAL HISTORY

CERAMIC OBJECTS have existed in many shapes and in

many countries for thousands of years. That they are pro­

duced from earth mixed with water, dried by air, and

baked by fire—embodying, thereby, the metaphysical

doctrine of the four elements that make up the uni­

verse—may explain some of their allure. The potter's

seemingly divine act of using a medium representing the

elements of the universe to create form from nonform

helps account for the cross-cultural appeal of ceramic

work, which long ago included not only utilitarian ves­

sels but also votive offerings to the gods. More impor­

tantly, however, it is clay's ability to give shape to

functional objects that explains the long history and re­

markably wide geographical and cultural dissemination

of ceramic production.

This long history and wide dissemination can be at­

tributed to three chief factors: first, the raw materials re­

quired—the different clays for the ceramic body, and the

minerals, ash, and sand for the pigments and glazes—are

abundant and accessible; second, ceramic ware is easily

shaped (by hand, on a wheel [fig. 1], or in a mold) and

hardened (by drying or firing); and third, the objects pro­

duced are fundamentally utilitarian.

Clay is made of earth formed by the decomposition

of feldspathic rocks. An almost limitless variety of clays

exists, depending on the amount of mineral and organic

matter and of impurities that either accumulate during

sedimentation or are added. Three general types of ce­

ramic ware can be produced from the various clays:

earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. Earthenware,

fired at relatively low temperatures, is porous, coarse,

and ranges in color from light yellow to red. Stoneware,

fired at a temperature high enough to make the body

somewhat vitrified, is hard and dense and was most pop­

ular in Europe in modern times in Germany and En­

gland. Finally, porcelain, also fired at high temperatures,

is translucent, white, and vitreous.

Earthenwares have been produced in Italy since an­

cient times. The colonizing Greeks (ninth to eighth cen­

tury B.C.) and the Etruscans (seventh to fifth century

B.C.), for example, were able, even masterful ceramists.

The development and success of tin-glazed earthen­

ware, or maiolica, on the peninsula in the fourteenth,

fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries produced a particu­

larly rich chapter in this history. Certainly, Italy's loca­

tion in the Mediterranean basin, at the center of an area

touched by diverse cultural influences—Byzantine, Is­

lamic, North African—helped determine not only the

high level of technical virtuosity but also the beauty and

variety that maiolica wares display.

The term maiolica is commonly thought to derive

from the name of the Balearic island of Majorca (Ma­

jolica), which served as an entrepot for the Moresque

lusterware bound for the Italian market in the fourteenth

and fifteenth centuries.^1 However, it is more likely trace­

able to the Spanish name for luster products, obra de

mdlequa.^2 Medieval potteries at Malaga [mdlequa), as

well as Murcia and Almeria in the Moorish south, seem

to have been the first to produce ceramic lusters in

Spain. Until the sixteenth century maiolica referred ex­

clusively to wares decorated with iridescent lusters of

Spanish or Islamic origin.^3 Only later did this term come

to refer to Italian earthenwares, including the unlustered

variety.

OPPOSITE: Basin with Deucalion and Pyrrha (detail). See no. 35. I