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

34G Jan Roos or Roosen (known as Giovanni Rosa or Rosso Genovese)
(Antwerp 1591-Genoa 1638). Pirates with Loot (detail), seventeenth
century. Rome, Galleria Colonna. This sixteenth-century Urbino vase
decorated with narrative scenes is shown grouped together with other
precious objects—such as small bronzes, metalwork, and jewelry—
attesting to the value given such maiolica ware at the time.

the Basilewski collection, Paris.^11 Five similarly shaped

flasks produced in a Fontana workshop are in the Museo

Nazionale, Palazzo del Bargello, Florence.^12 Like the

Getty Museum's example, a pilgrim flask of the late

15 60s or early 1570 s in the Nationalmuseum, Stock­

holm (inv. NM 60), displays marine subjects (Amphitrite

or Galatea crowned by a putto, a Triton abducting a

Nereid, and other sea creatures, against an overall back­

ground of blue waves).^13

Arguably the closest in style to the Getty flask are

the pharmacy containers made in the Fontana workshop

at the end of the sixteenth century for the Santa Casa di

Loreto.^14 Certain of these jars and the flask are decorated

with comparably rendered horses (hippocampi on the

flask) with animated facial expressions, finely propor­

tioned figures in theatrical poses, and dramatic swaths of

drapery. Although the jars are first mentioned in an in­

ventory of 1608, evidence suggests that they were a gift

of Guidobaldo II, duke of Urbino, and so must have been

produced before the duke's death in 1574.^15

Notes

1. Lightbown and Caiger-Smith 1980, 1: folios 5 recto and verso.


2. Wilson 1987A, 64, no. 91.


3. Sale cat., Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, March 9, lot 183.


4. He marries a Venetian woman and is documented in the service of the
   duke of Savoy (Liverani 1957, 133, no. 6).


5. It is known that Orazio's brother, Flaminio, produced several important
   pieces of maiolica between the years 1571 and 1574, including a signed
   rinfrescatoio in the Wallace Collection, London (Norman 1976, 218-23,
   no. 107).


6. Mallet 1987, 287-88.


7. Lessmann 1979, no. 230


8. Broun 1978, 28-29,- Cole 1977, no. 37; Chompret 1949, 1: 194; 2: 130,
   fig. 1033; saie cat., Christie's 1884, lot 376.


9. Watson 1986, 158-59, no. 62.


10. Rackham 1940, 1: nos. 840-41; 2: pi. 133.


11. Darcel and Delange 1867, pi. 97; Darcel and Basilewsky 1874, 158,
    no. 410.


12. Conti 1980, figs. 291-92; these flasks figure among the wares tradition­
    ally thought to have been executed for the table service of Duke
    Guidobaldo II della Rovere of Urbino, although proof of this commis­
    sion has not yet come to light. See also Conti I97IA, nos. 25, 27, 46,
    50 , 52..


13. Dahlback-Lutteman 1981, no. 20.


14. I am grateful to Timothy Wilson for bringing this comparison to my
    attention. See, for example, Grimaldi and Bernini 1979.


15. Grimaldi and Bernini 1979, 10-11.

Pilgrim Flask with Marine Scenes 191