most highly developed use of color by the artists of the
Faventine school/^75
The origin of the term berettino has been a subject of
much conjecture. Thanks to a mid-sixteenth-century
document belonging to a Faentine pottery that lists the
ingredients of a pigment, one does know that the term
refers to a specific azzuhno claw, or light blue color.^6
The term, however, may be of Venetian origin since it
seems to have been used in the Veneto region in the early
fourteenth century to refer to a sort of ordinary fabric.^7
The relationship of such fabrics to a color found on Faen
tine maiolica remains unclear. Nevertheless, the appeal
of berettino decoration spread north from Faenza, be
coming popular on mid-century Venetian (see no. 33)
and, later, Ligurian products.
Other albarelli similarly decorated with festoons
and arabesques on a light blue berettino ground include
those in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
(inv. F 3087);^8 one formerly in the Adda collection,
Paris;^9 one reproduced in 1974;^10 one sold at auction in
Milan,-^11 and one in a private Italian collection.^12 The
Museum's jar is distinguished by being both the tallest of
these examples and the only one labeled with an in
scribed banderole. An ovoid vase with similar decoration
is in the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza
(inv. 21297/c).^13
Notes- Drey 1978, 202, 222; Borgamcci 1567, 453-54.
- Munarini 1990, 209.
- Liverani 1958, 32 (cited in Ravanelli Guidotti 1998, 306). For examples
of Middle Eastern ceramics see Fehervari 1973, colorpl. G; Klein 1976,
pis. 8-10; Fehervari 2000, especially nos. 132-37, 218-20, 222-32, 290,
295-96, 302). - Liverani i960, 40.
- Liverani i960, 40.
- Ravanelli Guidotti 1998, 306.
- Tassini 1961, 70 (cited in Mazzucato 1970, 17 n. 1).
- Kube 1976, no. 13.
- Rackham 1959, no. 127A; Chompret 1949, 2: fig. 563.
- Liverani and Bosi 1974, pi. 10.
- Sale cat., Semenzato Nuova Gerl Sri, Milan, November 5, 1986, lot 89.
- See also Wilson 1996, 112-13, nos- 51-52.
- Bojani, Ravanelli Guidotti, and Fanfani 1985, 57, no. no.
24 A Alternate view.142 Drug Jar for Persian Philonium