6
Green-Painted Dish with
an Interlace Pattern
Florence area or Montelupo
Fifteenth centuryTin-glazed earthenware
H: 4.4 cm (i^3 A in.)
Diam: 25.3 cm (9^15 /i6 in.)
84.DE.9 4MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS
None.CONDITION
A break with areas of overpainting from rim to rim
across the center of the dish and on the rim; a
glaze fault and a few glaze chips around the rim.PROVENANCE
Alfred Pringsheim, Munich, by 1913; looted from
Pringsheim's collection by the Nazis during
Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938; stored in an an
nex of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich;
ordered exported to London by the German State
in 1938 for sale at auction in exchange for allowing Pringsheim and his wife to emigrate to
Switzerland (sold, Sotheby's, London, July 19,
1939 , lot 201, to E. L. Paget [according to sale cat.
notation]); E. L. Paget, London; A. Kauffman, Lon
don; [Rainer Zietz, Ltd., London, sold to the J. Paul
Getty Museum, 1984].EXHIBITIONS
None.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Falke 1914-23, 1: 4, fig. 4; 3: pi. 154, no. 236
(1); Cora 1973/ 2: no. sod, pi. 50; GettyMusJ 13
(1985): 239, no. 152; Hess 1988A, 20-22, no. 4;
Summary Catalogue 2001, no. 345.THIS MODEST DISH is in the form of a basin, or bacino,
with a flat bottom and rather vertical sides. In spite of its
simple form, the piece displays sophisticated geometric
and vegetal decoration in green, ocher, and pale brownish purple. The radiating sections of scalelike ornamen
tation around the rim, slanting "shuttle" pattern
alternating with wavy lines around the deep well border,
and curvilinear pattern in the well all complement the
object's simple shape. Moreover, this dish is one of the
rare undoubtedly functional pieces that have survived in
good condition. Although unembellished, the reverse
shows traces of lead and tin glazes.
The type of decoration found on this basin marks an
important development in maiolica embellishment. In
the second quarter of the fifteenth century, new designs
drawn from a variety of media (such as textiles, architec
tural decoration, manuscript illumination, and ceram
ics), originating in centers outside the peninsula (such
as Spain and the Near East), strongly influenced Italian
maiolica painted motifs. Examples of this kind of
embellishment include such diverse types of painted
decoration as relief-blue, Italo-Moresque, Gothic-floral,peacock feather, Persian palmette, and alia porcellana.
This dish's well displays looped scrolls and leaf
sprigs that emanate from a cruciform motif and grace
fully feed into a band around the well, all reserved on a
hatched ground. Arguably the piece most closely relatedto this bacino is a Florentine basin from the first half of
the fifteenth century in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cam
bridge (fig. 6c).^1 Although almost twice the size of the
Getty piece, this basin displays very similar decoration,
including the "shuttle" motif around the well wall and
the "scale" pattern around the rim. This rim embellish
ment is plausibly described as a "bound laurel wreath"
that would indicate the arrival of Renaissance features
on this "archaic" maiolica of essentially nonfigurative,
late medieval decoration.^2 On the Getty piece, however,
the binding appears as straight lines rather than curved
ones, making its rim less recognizable as a garland.
Similar decoration, particularly of the well and well
border, is found on Tuscan maiolica fragments dating
from the late fourteenth through the late fifteenth cen
tury that appear to be particularly common to Mon
telupo since a number of them have been found in
excavations there, some near kiln sites. According to
their archaeological context, the excavated examples are
datable to the second half of the fifteenth century. It is
possible that, since some of the Montelupo examples ap
pear more loosely and freely rendered, they represent a
slightly later phase of the type of decoration found on
the Getty example.^3 Fragments of a similar plate were
also excavated from a site located between Siena and
Montelupo (fig. 6D).^446