50.

Piatto 1505-15
h max 40 - Ø max 265 - Ø piede 110

Museo Archeologico e della Ceramica di Montelupo
(da scavo “pozzo dei lavatoi”)

Shallow dish in large dimensions (serving plate) with a distinct rim and a disc base; reconstructed from fragments and integrated both in form and decoration. Overall glazing.

The sample belongs to a group of large plates found in the “pozzo dei lavatoi” and attributed, as will be shown forthwith, to the workshop of Lorenzo di Piero Sartori, whom, as is known, marked his works with the initials “Lo”. All these documents, as well as being unusually large, denote a highly developed research, capable of highlighting, with a rigorous monochrome blue, the geometric severity of the composition that characterises them. They are light and shiny, especially in the bordering bands, as in miniature painting.

Here the decoration is characterised by the use of a floral motive of miniature dimensions composed of two tiny cup shape corolla that seem to stem form the same stalk and bend with structural uniformity so as to form a half-circle.

They are closed by the same stamen from which they originate. The centre of the decoration displays, as always, (there is one known single exception) an inverse disposition of the two tiny flowers that compose it.

By uniting the two plant circles a type of chain is formed which, in its linear development, fills in the spaces in proximity to the rim of the plate or soup-bowl.

This decoration, with the exception of a floating sphere (to be studied, but evidently from Iznik) has not, to date, been documented on other ‘dark’ forms. In the tangent point of the diverse rings that compose the “chain” the stylised stamens of the small flowers are prolonged into a “paragraph” shape.

This type of decoration is also characterised by the attempt to respect, despite the dimensions of the dish, the structural partitioning of the flower by means of meticulous outlining. There is little space between the bud and the corolla and, at times, this formal separation is enhanced by tiny circles (often in manganese brown) at the base of the bud.

This piece of maiolica, found in the “pozzo dei lavatoi”, has a floral contour of a circular chain with eight four petal motifs. This frame encloses the well in which a geometric plant composition has been painted.

This is a well known motif in maiolica painting, so much so that in Montelupo it was used throughout the whole Renaissance period. The decoration was obtained by superimposing a diamond on a square (or two squares with the same centre, one at 45 degrees). In it one can see an octagon of Islamic derivation.

This is comparable to the ancient symbolism found “in eight part constructions” of buildings such as the “Castel del Monte” in Andria. The external portion of the geometric figure, in fact, becomes a kind of radius, formed by eight equilateral triangles, usually only partially painted in the back ground with blue, while the centre of the octagonal space, common to both superimposed figures, is painted, usually with a plant pattern.

The motive of the blossomed buds embraced in a ring with which the contour of this maiolica is depicted, can be compared to the engravings reproduced as prints at the beginning of the 16th century that circulated amongst goldsmiths and decorators (Omodeo 1975, no. 19), there are also other examples in porcelain products of Iznik, that can be dated to the end of the 16th century (Soustiel 2001, p. 10 fig. 1). As is known, during the 1490’s some potters from Montelupo, paid particular attention to great manufacturing centres of Anatolia, and, thus, managed to obtain both the colour red (cf. See previous cards 34 and 44), and the characteristic shape of the suspended spheres, decorative form which probably derived from a Nicaean tradition.
 

Bibliografia

Berti 1998, pp. 141-42 e p. 302 tav. 144.