30
Dish with Saint Clare
Baldassare Manara (active ca. 1526-47)
Faenza
ca. 1535Tin-glazed earthenware
H: 3.8 cm (1V2 in.)
Diam: 21.5 cm (8^7 /i6 in.)
84.DE.10 7MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS
On the obverse, at the top, a shield with a holy
cross flanked by M and C below the annulets,- on
the scroll, PETRE DILIGIS ME; on the underside,
Baldasara Manara fa[e]n[tino] or Baldasara Man
ara fa[e]n[za],
CONDITION
Minor chips around the rim, repainted; one chip in
the base.PROVENANCE
[M. &. R. Stora, Paris, sold to C. Damiron]; Charles
Damiron, Lyons (sold, Sotheby's, London, June 16,
1938 , lot 20, to "Recher" [according to sale cat.
notation]),- A. Recher; Paul Damiron (sold,
Sotheby's, London, November 22, 1983, lot 209);
[Rainer Zietz, Ltd., London, sold to the J. Paul
Getty Museum, 1984].EXHIBITIONS
Italian Renaissance Maiolica from the William A.
Clark Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, March 5-May 17, 1987.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Damiron 1944, no. 79; Chompret 1949, 1: 77; 2 :
fig. 500; Sotheby's 1983-84, 290; GettyMusJ 13
(1985): 242, no. 167; Hess 1988A, no. 19; Ravanelli
Guidotti 1991, figs. XXIXd, XXXVId, XXXVIIIe,
XLIa; Ravanelli Guidotti 1996, 206-9, no. 34;
Summary Catalogue 2001, no. 368.PAINTED IN OLIVE GREEN, BLUE, YELLOW, OCHER,
grayish yellow, opaque white, and black, this coppa de
picts three saints in a mountainous landscape with a city
or large castle in the background. In the center is a fe
male saint wearing a black veil over a white hood with
an urn in one hand and a lily in the other. She is flankedby Saint Peter—identifiable by his keys: the dark key of
hell and golden key of heaven—and a generic martyr
saint holding aloft her attribute of a palm frond. Twoputti appear above the saints supporting a shield bearing
a cross held by two nails and flanked by the letters M and
C below annulets (probably the mark of a religious or
der). The reverse of the dish is painted with a yellow and
ocher scale pattern and is signed by the artist in the cen
ter of the raised foot.
The central figure has been convincingly identified
as Saint Clare of Assisi (fig. 30B).^1 Assuming a life of
poverty and prayer, she founded an order of Franciscan
women—the Order of Poor Ladies, or Clares—hence
her Franciscan hood. On the plate she faces Saint Peter,
directing toward him the words on the scroll—"Peter,
do you love me?"^2 —the question Jesus posed to Peter
three times (John 21). The plate's association of Clare
with Jesus might be explained in part by the fact that
Clare, on two occasions, made appeals to papal authority
to allow her to practice the absolute, Christ-like poverty
prescribed by Saint Francis, first to Pope Gregory IX in1228 and, later, to Innocent IV in 1253.^3 Both requests
were granted.
Baldassare Manara was a member of a family of pot
ters living in Faenza in the first half of the sixteenth cen
tury. In Faentine records he is described as figulus
(potter) of the parish of Saint Thomas. Manara's name ap
pears as early as 1526, and he is known to have died be
fore June 15, 15 47.^4
Thirty-six pieces are attributed—perhaps overgener-
ously—to this artist;^5 thirteen are signed. With the
Getty plate, these signed pieces include a plate with
Narcissus and another with the Resurrection, in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London,- a plate with the
Vestal Tuccia and a plaque with Captain Battistone
Castellini, in the British Museum, London,- a plate with
Aesacus and Hesperia, formerly in the Pringsheim col
lection, Munich; a plate with Atalanta and Hippomenes,
in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge,- a plate with
Pyramus and Thisbe, in the Petit Palais, Paris; a plate
with Joseph Finding the Gold Cup, in the Museum of In
dustrial Art, Prague; a plate with the Triumph of Time
and another with Caesar Receiving the Head of Pompey,
in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and a plate with
Apollo and Pan, in a private collection.^6 Of these signed
plates, four are dated 1534, one is dated 1535, and one
is dated 1536.170