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

5

Relief-Blue Jar with

a Fish

Tuscany, probably Florence

ca. 1420-40

Tin-glazed earthenware

H: 16.5 cm (6V2 in.)

Diam (at lip): 9.7 cm (3^13 /i6 in.)

W (max.): 12. 2 cm (4^13 /i6 in.)

85.DE.5 7

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS
None.

CONDITION

Minor chips and overpainting on the rim.

PROVENANCE

Luigi Grassi, Florence, sold to A. Lederer; August

Lederer (d. 1936), Vienna; by inheritance to his

widow, Serena Lederer, 1936; Serena Lederer

(d. 1943), Vienna; looted from Serena Lederer's col­

lection by the Nazis, 1938; stored in Nazi depot in

Vienna at Bartensteingasse, 8 (it appears as no. 183

on inventory list); restituted by the Austrian gov­

ernment to her son, Erich Lederer, 1947,- Erich

Lederer (1896-1985), Geneva; by inheritance

to his widow, Elisabeth Lederer, 1985; Elisabeth

Lederer, Geneva; sold to the J. Paul Getty Mu­

seum, 1985.

EXHIBITIONS

None.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rothenstein 1944, 205, pi. Q Cora 1973, 1: 78;

2 : fig. 83c; Conti 1980, no. 48; GettyMusJ 14

(1986): 251, no. 213; Hess 1988A, no. 6; Conti

et al. 1991, 258, no. 94; Summary Catalogue

2001, no. 344.

THIS ESSENTIALLY CYLINDRICAL VESSEL, though

slightly wider at the base, is characteristic of the al-

barello form, a container shape that was used to store

drugs and other materials (fig. 5 B). The surface is painted

with a vertically placed fish surrounded by leaves and

dots (or "berries") in thick cobalt blue pigment [zaffera a

hlievo) outlined in manganese purple on a pinkish white

ground. The background is scattered with manganese

dots and curved lines that echo the dot shapes. Down

one side and around the rim, wavy manganese lines are

punctuated by blue dots. The interior is tin glazed. The

vessel's small size suggests that it must be a quartuccio,

or quarter measure.

Although commonly thought to be of Hispano-

Moresque derivation, this fish motif appears to be de­

rived instead from Italian archaic maiolica prototypes

that may in turn have been based directly on Islamic

models.^1 A drug jar in a private Florentine collection that

displays a horizontally placed fish may be one of the few

maiolica objects with this motif that directly relate to

Hispano-Moresque or Near Eastern types.^2 This fish mo­

tif in the more common vertical position is found on

other early Florentine jars, although of the two-handled

form, also with oak-leaf and berry embellishment.^3

Although the fish—both as a vertical and horizontal

decorative element—is rather common, the small al-

barello shape of this piece is not. Of the L73 relief-blue

ceramics identified as Tuscan published in an extensive

compendium of this typology (excluding four groups of

fragments), 126 are two-handled jars (orciuoli), 35 are

jugs (boccali), 6 are plates, 2 are wet-drug jars (utelli), 1 is

a bucket, and only 3 are cylindrical jars [albarelli], the

present example being much the smallest of the group.^4

Two examples of small cylindrical jars identified as from

Faenza and a larger example from Viterbo are also listed,

but all three of these display surface decoration signifi­

cantly different from that on the present jar.^5 Whether

this was a shape not considered practical or, conversely,

whether objects of this shape were used extensively—

thus suffering frequent damage or destruction—is not

known.

Notes

1. Valeri 1984, 478, 480, 481 n. 24.


2. Cora 1973, 2: fig. 82; Valeri 1984, 480 n. 24, 494 n. 85.


3. For other examples see Cora 1973 , 2: figs. 83a-b, 84a-c, pi. 85; Bojani
   1990 , 170, pi. i; Cole 1977, 84-85, 100-101, nos. 40, 51. For ex­
   amples on archaic maiolica, see Cora 1973, 2: pis. 14a, 16a, 17a, 20.


4. Conti et al. 1991, 248-68.


5. Conti et al. 1991, 269, 291.

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