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

3 5 c Fontana workshop (Orazio or Flaminio). Ewer, ca. 1565-75. Tin-glazed

earthenware. Courtesy of the Huntington Library Art Collections, and

Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California.

Vatican Logge, which, in turn, were inspired by wall

paintings in ancient Roman houses, such as Nero's

Golden House, that had been discovered around 1500.

That these houses were excavated from beneath the

ground in grotto-like settings gave rise to the name of

their wall decoration. These so-called Raphaelesque or

grotesque motifs became greatly sought after for luxury

ceramic decoration.

These grotesques began to dominate the painted

decoration of elaborate ceramic forms, forcing the more

traditional Renaissance narrative scenes into circum­

scribed medallions or cartouches. Recent research has

established that the grotesques on at least forty Urbino

ceramics of this period copy engravings—the Petites

grotesques—by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (active

1549-84) that, in turn, appear to copy engravings by

Enea Vico of ca. 1540.^3 The availability of this print

source, published first in 1550 and later in 1562 and

known to have been used on Urbino ceramics by 1563/

must have influenced the prevalence and popularity of

Urbino grotesques.

Not only the painted embellishment but also the

forms of Fontana workshop ceramics reflect the new, or­

nate style of the mid-sixteenth century. Oval trays, re­

freshment coolers, basins, and jars were molded in

highly decorative, sculptural, and often fantastic shapes,

much like the elegant grotesques that ornament them.

The Museum's basin has traditionally been thought

to belong to a service of maiolica ware executed by

Orazio for Duke Guidobaldo II della Rovere of Urbino,

although no proof of this commission has come to light.^5

It is known that Orazio and Flaminio sent maiolica to

Francesco de' Medici in 1569 and 1573, respectively, in­

cluding examples decorated with grotesques.^6 Three

molded oval basins embellished with comparable narra­

tive scenes and grotesques on a white ground are in the

Museo Nazionale, Palazzo del Bargello, Florence,^7 and

appear to have entered the Bargello from the collections

of Francesco I, Cardinal Ferdinando, and Don Antonio

de' Medici.^8 A fourth such basin was in the Schlossmu-

seum, Berlin, until the Second World War, at which time

it was destroyed.^9

This basin is one of a group of six of identical form

decorated with some combination of analogous grotesque

ornament and narrative scenes. In addition to the Getty

basin, these include examples in the British Museum,

London; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut;

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Musee du Louvre, Paris;

and a fifth that sold at auction in 1995 and had been part

of the Veneziani collection, Rome.^10 Within this group,

the lobes of grotesque ornament surrounded by marine

motifs of the Getty basin match most closely those of

the basin in Hartford, whereas several of the framing

motifs, including the transformation of the lobes into

196 Basin with Deucalion and Pyuha