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Plate with Grotesques
Venice
ca. 1540-60
Tin-glazed earthenware
H: 5.7 cm (2 lA in.)
Diam: 47.7 cm (18% in.)
84.DE. 120
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS
On the obverse, .S.P.Q.R.
CONDITION
Hairline cracks on the right edge and on the left
side, with retouching.PROVENANCE
Collection of Queen Victoria (reigned 1837-1901),
London, by 1857 and at least until 1873;^1 Robert
Strauss, England (sold, Christie's, London, June 21
1976, lot 52, to R. Zietz); [Rainer Zietz, Ltd., Lon
don, sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1984].EXHIBITIONS
On loan to the Victoria and Albert (South Kensing
ton) Museum, London, by 1873 (Fortnum 1873,
596).BIBLIOGRAPHY
Marryat 1857, 34, fig. 18 (described as "probably
after a design of B. Franco"); Fortnum 1873, 596;
Christie's Review 1976, 400; Morley-Fletcher and
Mcllroy 1984, 86, fig. 1 (unconvincingly attributed(^) to the master of the Venetian dish of ca. 1520 with
arms of the Imhof and Schlaudersbach families,
, formerly in the Adda collection, Paris )
;i Getty -
MusJ 13 (1985): 244, no. 178; Hess 1988A, no. 3 3
and cover; Conti and Grosso 1990, fig. 54; Mariaux
1995, 82; Melegati 1996A, 42; Masterpieces 1997,
^24 , no. 16; Summary Catalogue 2001, no. 371.
THIS PLATE IS EMBELLISHED with a central male figure,
cherubs, cherubs' heads, griffins, cornucopias, bead
swags, drapery, and dolphins, all elegantly intertwined
and arranged a candelieri beneath a swag of draped fab
ric. The central figure supports a basket on his head
flanked by birds and surmounted by the inscribed panel.^2
The grotesque decoration is painted in greenish grisaille
(that is, in various tones of gray as a trompe l'oeil marble
relief) enriched with white and reserved on a dark blue
ground. The reverse displays a row of radiating dashes
and a border of scrolling alia poicellana foliage in dark
blue on a light blue berettino ground.
This plate appears to be a unique masterpiece. No
other known work of the period approaches its Manner
ist elegance and sophisticated rendering of figures and
decoration. One finds the most closely related trophy
and a candelieri designs—often in grisaille, on a light or
dark blue ground and with "filled-in" backgrounds of
white scrolling ribbons—on wares from the first half
of the sixteenth century from Urbino and Venice. Two
bowls—one in the National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C., and the other in the Museo Internazionale delle
Ceramiche, Faenza—probably made in the Urbino dis
trict provide especially close analogies to the Getty
plate.^3 Although their style predates that of the Getty
example by twenty-five years or more, their finely
painted, symmetrically placed designs in grisaille in
clude fantastic animals, ribbons, and beads—modeled
using small lines that follow the shape of the elements—
are strongly reminiscent of the larger Venetian example.
This kind of decoration has traditionally been asso
ciated with Castel Durante, and objects decorated in this
style are often described as painted in the maniera du-
rantina.^4 John Mallet traces the habit of calling this type
of decoration—grotesques painted in reserve blue on a
light blue or white ground—to Otto von Falke's no
longer accepted belief that Nicola da Urbino developed it
while he was in Castel Durante.^5
In his sixteenth-century treatise on ceramic produc
tion, Cipriano Piccolpasso writes in a caption below a
drawing of grotesque decoration very similar to that on
the Getty plate, "Le grotesche... glie una delicata pit-
tura, l'uso della qual'io no' so di dove si divini. Queste
pagansi doi fiornini per il stato [di Urbino] il cento, el a
Vinegia 8 lire.7/6 Piccolpasso's statement may imply that
the decoration was particularly common in the duchy of
Urbino and in Venice.
Similar stylistic elements, such as the facial features
and background scrolling ornament, can be found on
pieces attributed to Giovanni Maria, a ceramist active in
Castel Durante who traveled between the Urbino area—
where Castel Durante is located—and Venice in the first
decades of the sixteenth century (see no. 22).^7 While this
plate's style is Urbinate, its shape and color are charac
teristically Venetian. It is altogether possible that the
artist who painted this piece was born or trained around
Urbino and moved to Venice to create this plate around
the middle of the century.
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