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

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Tile Floor

Valencia region, probably Manises

(Spain)

ca. 1425-50

Tin-glazed earthenware

Overall: 110 x 220 cm (42% x 85% in.'

Square tiles: 11.2 to 12.4 cm

(4^7 /i6 to 4% in.)

Hexagonal tiles: 10.8 to 11.1 x 21 to

21.8 cm (4V4 to 4% x8lA to 8^9 /i6 in.)

84.DE.74 7

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS

On the scrolls across the hexagonal tiles, spera-

tens, ne oblyer-, on the square tiles, a coat of arm

of barry of six argent and gules.

CONDITION

Surface chips; numerous abraded areas.

PROVENANCE

Luigi Grassi, Florence, before 1920, sold to

R. Blumka in i960; [Ruth Blumka, New York,

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

EXHIBITIONS

Beyond Nobility: Art for the Private Citizen in the

s Early Renaissance, Allentown Art Museum, Sep­

tember 28, 1980-January 4, 1981; Italian Renais­

sance Maiolica from the William A. Clark

Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,

March 5-May 17, 1987.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berendsen 1967, 76; Callmann 1980, n5-16;

GettyMusJ 13 (1985): 239, no. 15 i; Hess 1988A,

no. i; Summary Catalogue 2001, no. 382.

THIS PAVEMENT consists of interlinked octagonal units

[alfardones) composed of square tiles (rajoles) with a coat

of arms, surrounded by hexagonal tiles [alfardones) with

a motto on scrolls. Both types of tiles are painted with

cobalt blue foliage. The triangular fills [rigoletes de

puntes, not illustrated) may have been cut from old tiles

at a later date. The coat of arms (barry of six argent and

gules) is probably Tuscan, but the family to which it be­

longs has yet to be identified (fig. 1 A).

On the scrolls, the mottoes speratens and ne oblyer

("have hope" and "do not forget"), possibly religious or

family devices, are written in Gothic script. These mot­

toes may be derived from an Old Catalan or Old French

dialect.^1

The floor's octagonal units composed of square and

hexagonal tiles are characteristic of Spanish pavements,

and the foliate pattern is typical of the ceramic centers of

Manises, Paterna, and Valencia. Although the design of

these tiles is certainly Spanish in origin, it is not known

whether the floor was ever installed in Spain. Valencian

potters produced large quantities of similarly inscribed

tiles, as well as ceramic plates and vessels for export to

Italy in the fifteenth century.^2

Matching hexagonal tiles inscribed speratens are in

the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin (inv. 01,43c),^3 and the

Musee National de Ceramique, Sevres (inv. MNC 8447),

and one inscribed ne oblyer was formerly in the Robert

Forrer collection, Zurich.^4 A matching square tile with

1 A Plate with the arms of the Bonacossi of Ferrara. Valencia, ca. 1450.

Tin-glazed earthenware, Diam: 27 cm (io^5 /s in.). Courtesy of the

Hispanic Society of America. Given the limited palette available, it is

difficult to securely identify simple coats of arms depicted on maiolica:

a light-colored bar, for example, might be painted in any available light-

colored pigment. However, the apparent Bonacossi interest in Valencian

ceramics makes it at least possible that their coat of arms is the one on

the Getty tiles.

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