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

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8

Relief-Blue Jar with

Running Boars

Florence

ca. 1430

Tin-glazed earthenware

H: 25 cm (9% in.)

Diam (at lip): 12.5 cm J4^15 /i6 in.)

W (max.): 24. 5 cm (9V8 in.)

84.DE.98

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS

On each strap handle, a copper green and

manganese purple crutch; below each handle, a

six-pointed asterisk surrounded by dots.

CONDITION

A crack runs from the base to the top of one of th

handles on one side; minor chips on the handles

and in the glaze of the body.

PROVENANCE

According to Sir Thomas Ingilby, possibly acquire

by Sir John Ingilby in Italy in 1743, though cer­

tainly at Ripley Castle for several generations; by

inheritance to Sir Joslan Ingilby, Bt., Ripley Castl

Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England (offered for

sale, Sotheby's, London, July 2, 1974, lot 261,

withdrawn because of the owner's sudden death);

by inheritance to Sir Thomas Ingilby, Bt., Ripley

Castle, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England (sold,

Sotheby's, London, April 14, 1981, lot 13, to

R. Zietz); [Rainer Zietz, Ltd., London, sold to the

J. Paul Getty Museum, 1984].

EXHIBITIONS

None.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Norman 1981; Cuadrado 1984, 127; GettyMus]

13 (1985): 240, no. 158; Hess 1988A, no. 8; Conti

et al. 1991/ 255, fig. 71; Cohen and Hess 1993,

29; Summary Catalogue 2001, no. 347.

THE BODY OF THIS two-handled drug jar is covered with

a yellowish white tin-glaze ground decorated with

branches of leaves in cobalt blue pigment, framing on

each side a running saddleback boar, also in blue. This

jar is the only known relief-blue pot decorated with the

boar motif. Blue dots (or "berries") and manganese

purple lines further embellish the body, neck, and ribbed

strap handles. The cobalt decoration is outlined in man­

ganese purple. The interior is tin glazed.

A copper green and manganese purple crutch, em­

blem of the Florentine Santa Maria Nuova hospital, is

painted on each of the two handles (fig. 8B). Under the

direction of hospital manager Michele di Frosino da

Panzano (elected 1413-d. 1443), it appears that a new

pharmacy was ordered for Santa Maria Nuova. This ren­

ovation probably occurred around 1431 since in July of

that year a ceramist was paid for new drug containers

"per la nuova spezieria" (for the new pharmacy) and in

November a cabinetmaker was paid for making the

"l'armario nuovo della spezieria" (new cabinet for the

pharmacy).^1 Although Giunta di Tugio has been associ­

ated with the asterisk mark (fig. 8A; see nos. 7, 9),

records show that several ceramists, including Maso and

Miniato di Domenico as well as Giunta, supplied the

hospital with more than five hundred and one thousand

drug jars, respectively, around 1430.^2

In the early Middle Ages hospitals were simple hos­

pices set up outside cities to offer food and lodging to

pilgrims and travelers. The Santa Maria Nuova hospital,

by the mid-fourteenth century the largest in Florence,

was the first hospital in that city dedicated primarily to

caring for the sick. From documents such as the hospi­

tal's account books and Matteo Villani's Cronica, we

know that Santa Maria Nuova supplied high-quality

medical care to a wide cross section of Florence's popu­

lation while concentrating on the needs of the poor.^3

Also used as a motif on Spanish ceramics and in

Italian manuscript illuminations,^4 the saddleback boar

might have been used to refer either to one of the

8 A Detail of maker's mark below handle.

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