12
Armorial Jar
Deruta
ca. 1460-90
Tin-glazed earthenware
H: 22.2 cm (8^3 /4 in.)
Diam (at rim): 11.4 cm (4V2 in.)
W (max.): 23.4 cm (9^3 /i6 in.)
84.DE.9 9
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS
On one side, AMA.DIO.
CONDITION
Glaze chips on the handles, body, and rim; loose
glaze on the lower left of the shield side near the
base due to soluble-salt damage; a hairline crack in
the neck on reverse.
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 allow
ing Pringsheim and his wife to emigrate to
Switzerland (sold, Sotheby's, London, July 19,
1939 , lot 3, to A. Spero [according to sale cat. no
tation]); [Alfred Spero, London]; [Rainer Zietz, Ltd.,
London, sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1984].EXHIBITIONS
Italian Renaissance Maiolica from the William A.
Clark Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, March 5-May 17, 1987.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Falke 1914-23, 1: no. 11, pi. 8; Bellini and Conti
1964, 89, fig. A; GettyMus] 13 (1985): 240,
no. 159; Bojani 1988, 54-55, fig. 14; Fiocco and
Gherardi 1988, 1: 54-55, fig. 14; Hess 1988A,
no. 12; Donatone 1993A, pis. 46, i62d; Fiocco
and Gherardi 1994A, 145, no. 6; Fiocco and
Gherardi 1994, 145, no. 6; Summary Catalogue
2001 , no. 351.THIS VESSEL is of a gently waisted, cylindrical form
with a tall, perpendicular rim and two rope-twist handles
that terminate in deep indentations. The body is divided
into decorative panels that display on one side a blue and
ocher testa di cavallo (horse's head, so called because of
its shape) shield against a light copper green half-circle
below blue tendrils and dots. The colors that could be
fired on maiolica in the fifteenth century were limited
to shades of blue, green, ocher, and purple. It is there
fore difficult to identify coats of arms that do not have
specific distinguishing features. Although the horizontal
stripes on this jar are painted in ocher and blue, these
pigments may stand for any alternating light and dark
colors, and thus this shield could belong to any one of a
number of prominent contemporary families.^1 However,
the distinctive testa di cavallo shield of azure a fesse or
appears on a number of maiolica plates and drug jars
from Deruta, where it is identified as the arms of the
Baglioni of Perugia, a powerful family who periodically
ruled Deruta, located a scant fifteen kilometers to the
south.^2 Indeed, one early sixteenth-century Deruta plate
displaying such a shield includes a banderole inscribed
with the Baglioni name (fig. 12c).^3
In addition, recent public construction and utility
projects in Deruta have unearthed kiln discards that
indicate that this jar came from there. Given their nature
as mistakes, these discards—which include examples
of rope-twist handles (fig. I2D) and similar zigzag, ten
dril, dot, and splayed-lined motifs as on this vessel—
could not have been brought into the area from else
where and must have been created at the site where
they were found.^4
On the other side of this jar, stylized leaves, tendrils,
and dots frame the inscription AMA.DIO (love God).^5
This proverb, which begins "Ama Dio e non fallire/fai
del bene e lascia dire/lascia dir lasciar chi vuole/ama Dio
di buon cuore" (Love God and do not fail/do good deeds
and let it be said/let it be said by anyone/love God with
a good heart), was widely known in sixteenth-century
Italy. A diagonal dash pattern in blue ornaments the
base, a triangular motif of splayed blue lines decorates
the shoulder, and an ocher zigzag between blue stripes
embellishes the rim. The interior is unglazed.
This work belongs to the second phase of the severe
style, often referred to as the Gothic-floral family be
cause central Italian ceramists drew not only on Islamic
motifs but also on European Gothic ornament (in archi
tecture and miniature illumination, for example) to dec
orate their works.^6 Single figurative elements began to
appear on objects of this early period, which flourished74