4E Jug. Late fourteenth-early fifteenth century. Tin-glazed earthenware,
H: 23.5 cm (9/4 in.). Siena, private collection.
time the jar was made. From 1395, di Mazzeo worked as
a ceramist in his hometown of Bacchereto before moving
to nearby Florence, where he became head of an impor
tant workshop in 1422 together with two partners and a
group of craftsmen, many of whom also came from the
town.^8 Bacchereto appears to have been an active pottery
center from the fourteenth century, claiming more than
forty active potters by the fifteenth century.^9 One potter,
Antonio di Branca, was a native of Viterbo and is known
to have worked in di Mazzeo's workshop from roughly
142 7 to 1429.^10 Di Branca's presence in di Mazzeo's
work-shop may explain the unusual presence of a fantas
tic beast with human head—more common on works
from centers such as Orvieto and Viterbo—on this jar of
Tuscan origin.^11
The Harpy was a monster said to torment misers and
was commonly used during the Renaissance as a symbol
of avarice. It is uncertain whether the Harpies here are
invested with this meaning. They might have served as
admonitory emblems referring to the generosity of the
hospital for which this drug jar was made. Harpies also
decorate a Florentine drug jar formerly in the Wilhelm
von Bode collection, Berlin,^12 and another in the Musee
du Louvre, Paris.^13 The unusually close resemblance of a
Harpy on a jug in a Sienese private collection (fig. 4E) to
the Harpies on the Getty jar—with elongated heads,
prominent upper lip, and eyes made of a dot within a
single curving line—suggests that the same painter was
responsible for the decoration of both objects. The asso
ciation of the Getty's relief-blue vessel with this green-
painted jug, an early typology, confirms the early date of
the Getty piece.
Further examples of closed vessels displaying sym
metrically placed striped birds, possibly peacocks, are in
the Museo Nazionale, Palazzo del Bargello, Florence, and
in the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Don-
azione Cora, Faenza.^14
A short ladder surmounted by a cross is the emblem
of the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, where
this jar would have served as a drug container in the
hospital's pharmacy. Its emblem refers to the hospital's
location in front of the steps [scala) of the city's cathe
dral. Santa Maria della Scala was primarily a foundling40 Relief-Blue far with Harpies and Birds