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

34

Pilgrim Flask with

Marine Scenes

Fontana workshop (possibly

Orazio; 1510-71)

Urbino

ca. 1565-70

Tin-glazed earthenware

H: 44.1 cm (17 Vs in.)

W (max.): 28.6 cm (11 lA in.)

84.DE.119.1-. 2

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS

None.

CONDITION

Cracks and restorations on the side loops and on

the screw top.

PROVENANCE

Thomas F. Flannery Jr., Winnetka, Illinois,- by in­

heritance to Joanna Flannery, Winnetka, Illinois;

Chicago (sold, Sotheby's, London, November 22,

1983, lot 160, to E. Lubin); [Edward Lubin, New

York, sold to R. Zietz],- [Rainer Zietz, Ltd., London,

sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1984].

THIS VESSEL IS MOLDED IN THE FORM of a pilgrim flask

with a tall, tapering neck and screw top surmounted by

a vase-shaped knop (figs. 34C-D). Cipriano Piccolpasso

discusses and illustrates with specificity the clever

method used by potters to create screw tops (figs. 34E —

F).^1 His particular interest in this technique may have

been due to the fact that he was writing his treatise at

around the same time that these screw-top flasks were

most popular.

Both neck and cover of the flask are decorated with

black birds among clouds. The handles, in the form of

horned grotesque masks, have curling "beards" that

become relief volutes complementing the shape of the

flask body. The ceramic pilgrim-flask form reflects

the influence of metal pilgrim flasks patterned after the

dried gourds used by travelers to carry drinking water,

which were suspended from side loops. The horned

masks on the sides of the Museum's flask and the holes

cut from either side of the base would never have been

used to suspend the object; they were retained as decora­

tive reminiscences of the earlier functional forms.

The flask is painted on both sides with marine

scenes: a Triton abducting a Nereid on one and two fight­

ing Tritons on the other. The palette consists of blue,

buff, dark manganese purple, copper green, yellowish

green, brownish ocher, yellow, turquoise, black, and

opaque white. Orazio Fontana (1510-1571) was the eld­

est son of the master potter Guido Durantino, who took

the Fontana family name after he moved to Urbino from

his native Castel Durante. Orazio's brothers Camillo and

Nicola and his nephew Flaminio were also maiolica pot­

ters, although Orazio appears to have been the most cel­

ebrated of the Fontana ceramists.

Stylistic analogies exist between this flask and a vase

in the British Museum,- its inscription establishes that

the vase was "made in the workshop of Master Orazio

Fontana."^2 Both flask and vase are decorated with richly

colored istoriato scenes, applied masks, and coiling ele­

ments,- on the flask they are the "beards" and horns of

the masks, on the vase these are the snake handles. The

narrative scenes on this flask also bring to mind the

scene of the landing of the Greeks before Troy on a

molded wine cooler that sold at auction in 1950.^3 This

piece of ca. 1565-71 includes a band of grotesques

around the istoriato scene and on the underside and is

signed on the reverse Fatto in Urbino in Botega di Ora-

tio Fontana.

Orazio worked in his father's shop at least until the

1540s. Evidence of his ceramic activity is lacking for the

ensuing twenty years, during which time he appears to

have been traveling around Northern Italy.^4 In 1565

Orazio finally set up his own bottega not far from that of

his father in Urbino's Borgo San Paolo, and it remained

active for several years after his death in 157L.^5 During

this time Orazio occupied himself mainly with luxuri­

ous ceramics (fig. 34F), often combining istoriato scenes

with grotesque ornament, probably leaving to his father

the plainer, and probably more profitable, white and

common wares.^6 Whether Orazio continued to paint the

pieces produced in his workshop after 1565 or whether

EXHIBITIONS

None.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GettyMusJ 13 (1985): 243-44, no. 177; Hess

1988A, no. 32; Summary Catalogue 2001, 372.

186