Chapter XIII: Part 13

The history of the development of these noble wares is by no means clear, nor is it always certain what part was played by each town in the successive inventions of technical methods, decoration and colouring, so that it is better, in such a general sketch as this, to treat the subject in its broadest features only. In the earlier painted wares the only colours used were manganese-purple and a transparent copper-green as on the mezza-majolica, but early in the 15th century cobalt-blue was added to the palette, and, later on, the strong yellow antimoniate of lead, mixed with iron. The decorations at this period were largely influenced by the wares imported from Persia, Syria, Egypt and Spain, specimens of which were so prized as to be used for the decoration of church fronts and the façades of public buildings. The lustre of the Saracenic wares was not yet understood, but its place was taken first by manganese and afterwards by yellow. The designs were chiefly conventional flower-patterns in the Persian or Moorish style, arabesques, and floral scrolls, the ground being filled at times with those tiny spirals, scrolls and dots to which the Eastern potters were so partial. Figures, human and animal, were introduced either among the formal ornament or only sundered from it by panels, of which the outlines often followed the contours of the central design (see the early 15th-century Faenza piece, Plate VI.). The figures were, in fact, drawn to conform to the outline of the vessel, and not the vessel made to display the figure-subject as in the majolica of the succeeding century. The earliest dated example of this period is the pavement laid down in the Caracciolo chapel in the church of San Giovanni a Carbonara, in Naples, about 1440. Specimens of these tiles may be seen in the British Museum, and from their style it has been suggested that they were made by some Spanish potters brought over to Naples by Queen Joanna, who was of the royal house of Aragon. To this period also have been referred the large ovoid jars made to contain drugs or confections, and decorated with bold scrolls of formal oak leaves enclosing spirited figures of men or animals, or heraldic devices. These are characterized by a rich blue colour generally piled up in palpable relief and sometimes verging on black; the outlines are usually in manganese, and transparent green is used for details and occasionally even as a ground colour. This ware has been definitely assigned to Florence on what seem very inadequate grounds, and it is better to speak of it simply as Tuscan. Then, essentially Italian ornament began to assert itself, and it redounds to the credit of the Italian majolist that he soon freed himself from repeating the styles of the wares from which he obtained his methods, and produced a distinctive type of ornament of his own. He revelled in patterns with bold floral scrolls, or those based on peacocks' feathers (see fig. 45), and then he advanced to concentric bands of painted ornament, borrowed from classic art yet breathing the true spirit of the Renaissance; while cable borders, chequer and scale patterns, bands of stiff radiating leaves, festoons of fruit and flowers, zigzags and pyramidal scrolls occupied nearly the whole surface or framed an armorial or emblematic central subject. Figure-subjects occur with increasing frequency as the century advanced; Madonnas and other sacred subjects, portraits, and, occasionally, groups of figures after the early Italian masters, or scenes borrowed from the first illustrated editions of the classics, gradually encroach on the conventional borders and occupy more and more of the surface of the piece. The provenance of these 15th-century pieces still remains uncertain--Faenza, Forli, Florence, Siena and other places offering rival claims,--but there is no doubt that from the earliest times Faenza was the most fertile centre of their manufacture, and almost all the motives of the _quattrocento_ wares are found on fragments discovered there or on examples that can be traced to Faventine factories.

Late Faenza Potter's mark.]

It is customary to treat the enamelled terra-cottas of Luca della Robbia, the great Florentine sculptor (1399-1482), and his followers, Andrea and Giovanni della Robbia and other members of the family, as belonging rather to the domain of sculpture than of pottery, and this is right, for there is nothing certainly known of the work of this great sculptor which connects it with painted majolica. The old theory that Luca invented the tin-glaze is long since exploded; what he did was to use coloured glazes made with a basis of tin-enamel on his boldly modelled terra-cottas--a very different thing,--and it is by no means certain that he was the first to do even that. The Victoria and Albert Museum is extraordinarily rich in della Robbia ware of every kind; and one may see there these beautifully modelled figures in high relief covered with pure white tin-enamel, set in a background of slatey blue or rich manganese purple and framed in wreaths of flowers and fruit which are coloured with blue, green, purple and sometimes yellow. There are altar vases too, of classic shape with low relief ornament, covered with the same peculiar blue glaze; these are sometimes furnished with modelled fruit and flowers; and finally there is the rare set of roundels painted on the flat with figure-subjects typifying the months; but the attribution of these remains doubtful, and their method is not that of painted majolica.

A remarkable development took place at the beginning of the 16th century, and in the forty succeeding years the highest perfection of manipulative skill, both in potting and painting, was attained. Artistically regarded, the elaborate and detailed methods of painting then adopted are too much allied to fresco-painting to be considered as fit treatment for enamelled clay; but this view was certainly not accepted at the time, nor is it subscribed to by many modern collectors; yet, regarded as decorated pottery, the 15th-century majolica, simpler and more conventional in design and treatment, is eminently preferable. The ruling families of northern Italy, who now took the industry under their personal patronage, clearly inclined to the opposite view and spared no expense to provide subjects for their pot-painters. During the first two decades the influence of Faenza was paramount, and though the encroachments of purely pictorial motives are clearly indicated on the wares, room was still found for ornamental patterns. The broad rims of the dishes were covered with beautiful arabesque designs, frequently including grotesque figures, masks, dolphins and cherubs (see the Faenza Casa Pirota piece, 1525, Plate VI.). Sometimes reserved in the white on a dark blue ground and shaded with light blue and yellow, sometimes traced in dark blue on a paler grey-blue glaze (called _berettino_) or painted in darker tints on a ground of orange or full yellow, the Faventine arabesques form a conspicuous feature of the early wares of this century. Honeysuckle patterns and interlaced lines drawn in pure white on a toned tin-enamel (white on white or _sopra-bianco_ decoration) commonly appear on the sides of the deep wells of the dishes, while in the centre is a single figure, a coat of arms, or a small figure-subject. A similar treatment, without the _sopra-bianco_, was accorded to the fruit-dishes, shallow bowls on low feet, &c., with moulded gadroons or scalloped sides, which are generally attributed to Faenza or Castel Durante. The workshops of Siena were also noted for delicately painted grotesques and arabesques, with a rich brownish-yellow or deep black ground. At Gubbio, too, the "grotesque" decoration was practised with marked success. Other developments of this style are the "_a candelieri_" designs, in which grotesques were symmetrically arranged round some central subject, such as a candelabrum or vase, and "_a trofei_" in which trophies of arms, musical instruments, and other objects were symmetrically disposed, or arranged in studied disarray throughout the design; these patterns are generally associated with the wares of Castel Durante and Deruta. Lovers' gifts, dishes in which the whole space is occupied by a portrait bust of a girl or man, with the name and a complimentary adjective inscribed on a ribbon in the background, were common to Faenza, Castel Durante and many other factories. Elaborate figure-subjects also were attempted early in the century at Faenza and with no little success, as may be seen from a dish in the British Museum, which is entirely occupied by the scene of the death of the Virgin, after a print by Martin Schöngauer, delicately painted in shades of blue, and dated about 1500.

In the early Faventine school the outlines of the figures are almost always traced in blue, even when they are laid on the grey-blue _berettino_ ground, and blue was the prevailing colour of the shading and details. In the third decade of the century the style affected at Urbino superseded that of Faenza. The majolica painter's palette was now complete; in addition to the primitive blue, manganese-purple, transparent green and yellow, we find black, white, orange, greens of varying shades, brown, and a great number of intermediate tints obtained by mixing the standard colours. All the colours of the majolica of the best periods were painted on the tin-enamel before the final glazing, and were capable of standing the full heat of the fire. Such a thing as painting in enamels on the finished ware and refiring them at a lower heat was unknown before the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century. A true red colour seems to have been beyond the power of most of the Italian majolists, and was only attained at Faenza, and with less complete success at Cafaggiolo; the famous red of the Turkish pottery behaves very indifferently on tin-enamel.

In the Urbino style, which now became general, the ware was given over entirely to pictorial subjects, scenes from history or romance, scriptural and mythological, copied from the compositions of the Italian painters and usually set in a background of Italian landscape. Guidobaldo II., duke of Urbino, spared no pains to develop this phase of the art; the cartoons of Raphael, engraved by Marc Antonio and others, were placed at the disposal of the pot-painters, as well as the paintings of Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Battista Franco, Rosso Rossi, Perugino, Parmeggiano and many more, and these, together with engravings by Agostino Venetiano, Marco Dente, Enea Vico and others, were copied, with more or less fidelity, on the majolica. Some of the painters, as, for instance, Xanto Avelli, were eclectic in their tastes and made up their subjects by taking a figure here or there from various pictures. Thus of three figures on a plate in the British Museum, painted with the Dream of Astyages, one is borrowed from Raphael and another from Mantegna. These "_istoriati_" wares reached their zenith at Urbino between the years 1530 and 1560, when the workshops of the Fontana family were in full activity; but their popularity was very general, and skilful painters at many other towns produced specimens that it is hard to distinguish from those of Urbino. Baldasara Manara was a prolific painter in this style at Faenza; Pesaro and Castel Durante were little behind Urbino in the skill of their artists, the Lanfranchi family in the former town having a well-deserved reputation, while the founders of the Fontana factories learnt their art in the latter; and a few pieces of considerable merit bear the name of Rimini as their place of origin.

There will always remain a large number of specimens of majolica which cannot be assigned with certainty to any particular factory, partly because the same style of painting was in vogue at many places at the same time, and partly because of the itinerant propensities of many of the painters, whose signed works prove that they moved from place to place to practise their art. There are, however, a few prominent artists whose touch is sufficiently well known from the examples that bear their signatures to enable us to classify a considerable proportion of the finest pieces. First of these is Niccola Pellipario, the founder of the Fontana family, who moved from Castel Durante to Urbino in 1519, and worked at the latter place in the factory of his son, Guido Fontana. There is little doubt that he was the painter of the famous service in the Correr Museum at Venice, which marks the transition from the style of Faenza to that of Urbino, and his free figure-drawing, the oval faces with strongly marked classical features, the peculiarly drawn knees, the careful landscapes and the characteristic balls of cloud are easily recognized in quite a number of pieces in the British Museum (see the Gonzago Este piece, Plate VI.). His pupil, who frequently signed his name in full, Xanto Avelli da Rovigo, was one of the foremost Urbino painters, and his work is characterized by bold colouring and fine figure-drawing, with a marked fondness for yellowish flesh tints. But Niccola's grandson, Orazio Fontana (see example, Plate VI.), was perhaps the most celebrated exponent of the pure Urbino style, and his free drawing and soft harmonious colouring, in which a brilliant blue is usually conspicuous, are unequalled by any other majolica painter of the period.

Certain characteristic wares of Faenza have already been noted. Those with the grey-blue (_berettino_) glaze were principally made at the factory called Casa Pirota, though inferior imitations were also produced at Padua, and a blue glaze of paler tint was largely used at Venice. Dolphins are a frequent motive in the arabesque ornaments of the same Faventine workshop, and many of the wares are marked with a circle divided by a cross and containing a dot in one of the quarters. A capital P crossed with a line or paraph is another Faventine mark, and a somewhat similar monogram, with an S added to the upper part, is found in the wares of Cafaggiolo. It has already been stated that a red colour is peculiar to Faenza and in an inferior and browner tint to Cafaggiolo; it was used, according to Piccolpasso, at the factory of Vergiliotto in the former place. At Cafaggiolo, the factory of the Medici family, many fine pieces were painted, mostly in the Faventine style; a deep blue, heavily applied and showing the marks of the brush, was freely used in backgrounds, and delicate running leaf scrolls in paler blue and reminiscent of Persian style often appear on the Cafaggiolo wares (see example, Plate VI). Not a little can be learnt from the ornament on the reverse sides of the dishes and plates; those of Faenza and Siena are richly decorated with scale patterns and concentric bands; those of Cafaggiolo and Venice are either left blank or have one or two rings of yellow. A few pre-eminently beautiful dishes, with central figure subjects of miniature-like finish in delicate landscapes with poplar trees in a peculiar mannered style, are probably the work of M. Benedetto of Siena. Borders of arabesques with black or deep orange ground belong to the same factory and were perhaps decorated by the same hand. The dishes covered, except for a few small medallions, with interlaced oak branches ("_a cerquate_" decoration), are no doubt the productions of Castel Durante; and a certain class of large dishes with figure subjects in blue on a toned blue glaze, and sometimes with formal ornaments in relief, are of undisputed Venetian origin.

Another phase of majolica decoration began about the middle of the 16th century and synchronized with the decline of the pictorial style. The figure subjects were relegated to central panels or entirely replaced by small medallions, and the rest of the surface covered with fantastic figures among floral scrolls, inspired by Raphael's grotesques painted on the walls of the Loggie in the Vatican. The prevailing tone of this ornament was yellow or orange, and the tin-enamel ground, which is always more or less impure in colour on Italian pottery, was washed over with a pure milk-white, known as _bianco di Ferrara_ or _bianco allatato_, said to have been invented by Alphonso I., duke of Ferrara, who took an active interest in his private factory founded at Ferrara, and managed by potters from Faenza and Urbino.

The new style flourished at Urbino, Pesaro and Ferrara; at the first-named particularly in the workshops of the Patanazzi family, and lasted far into the 17th century. But the majolica was now in full decline, partly through the falling off of princely patronage, and partly, perhaps, owing to a reaction in favour of Chinese porcelain, which was becoming more plentiful and better known in Europe. The manufacture, however, never entirely ceased, and revivals of the old style were attempted at the end of the 17th century by Ferdinando Maria Campori of Siena, who copied Raphael's and Michelangelo's compositions, and by the families of Gentile and Grue at Naples and Castelli. The majolica of Castelli is distinguished by the lightness of the ware, good technique, and harmonious but pale and rather weak colouring; it continued into the 18th century. A coarse and inferior ware was made at Padua and Monte Lupo; and the factories of Faenza were still active, producing, among other kinds, a pure white ware with moulded scallops and gadroons. The industry continued to flourish in Venice and the north. Black ware with gilt decoration was a Venetian product of the 17th century, and at Savona and Genoa blue painted ware in imitation of Chinese blue and white porcelain made its appearance. In the 18th century a new departure was made in the introduction of enamel painting over the glaze, a method borrowed from porcelain; but this process was common to all the faience factories of Europe at the time, and though it was widely practised in Italy no special distinction was attained in any particular factory. In our own days imitations of the 16th century wares continue to be made in the factories of Ginori, Cantigalli and others, not excepting the lustred majolica of Gubbio and Deruta; but, compared with the old pieces, the modern copies are heavy to handle, stiff in drawing, suspiciously wanting in the quality of the colours and the purity of the final glaze which distinguish the work of the best period.

Savona Potter's marks.]

_Lustred Wares._--The lustred wares of Deruta have marked characteristics, and, though differing in actual treatment from the Hispano-Moresque, their appearance is eloquent in favour of such a derivation. The most characteristic examples are large dishes and plateaux, thickly made and with the enamel on the upper face only, the back having a lead glaze. They are often decorated (see fig. 46) with a single figure or bust in the centre (with or without an inscribed ribbon), which is usually set against a dark blue background which covers only half the field, while in the other half is a formal flower, and in the borders are radiating panels with palmettes alternating with scale pattern, or some other formal design. The whole style is archaic, the designs being heavily outlined in blue and washed over with a greenish yellow lustre, with beautiful opalescent _reflets_ recalling mother of pearl. The lustre varies from this _madreperla_ tint to a brassy metallic yellow, and parts of the ornament are sometimes modelled in low relief. In spite of its archaic appearance, the Deruta lustred wares are scarcely older than the 16th century, and the style was continued as late as the second half of that century. Deruta pottery was not always lustred, and some of the pieces signed by the painter El Frate, who flourished between 1541 and 1554, are without the lustre pigment, though showing the heavy blue outlines of the lustred wares. The lustred majolica of Gubbio owes its celebrity almost entirely to the work of one man, Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, who came thither from Pavia, with his brothers Salimbene and Giovanni, and obtained citizenship in 1498. His earliest efforts were in the direction of sculpture, and some of his reliefs in the style of della Robbia are still in existence; indeed the earliest dated piece of lustred majolica attributed to him is a plaque of 1501, with the figure of St Sebastian in relief, in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is not known whence he learnt the secret of the beautiful transparent ruby lustre peculiar to Gubbio. A red or rosy lustre is found in both Persian and Hispano-Moresque wares, and no doubt the process was learnt from some Moslem potter and developed by Giorgio to unusual perfection. Golden, yellow, brown and opalescent lustres were also freely used at Gubbio, the ruby being only sparingly applied. Finished painted pieces were sent from other factories to receive the addition of lustre at Gubbio, but these can almost always be distinguished from the true Gubbio wares, in which the lustre is an integral part of the decoration. Apart from the lustred enrichment, the majolica of Gubbio has few distinctive qualities, for its styles were various and almost all borrowed (see fig 47). The archaic taste of Deruta, the arabesques and grotesques of Faenza and Castel Durante, and in a lesser degree the "_istoriato_" style of Urbino, reigned in turn. Perhaps the most characteristic paintings of Maestro Giorgio are the central medallions of cups and deep dishes enclosing a single figure of a child or a cupid in _grisaille_. Giorgio's larger figure compositions, if indeed his signature in lustre may be taken to imply that he painted the designs as well as lustred them, show great inequality, some rising to a very high standard--as the dish with "the Three Graces" in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the "Bath of Nymphs" in the Wallace collection--while in others the figure drawing is quite inferior. The arabesques and grotesques on the Gubbio wares are usually of great merit. There are a few known pieces of unlustred Gubbio wares with figure subjects, painted chiefly in blue and in the style of the early Faventine artists. After 1517, when we may assume that the lustre process was thoroughly mastered, the Gubbio wares were usually signed with the initials or full name of Maestro Giorgio, and a few rapidly executed scrolls in lustre completed the decorations of the reverse of the plates and dishes. The master's latest signed work is dated 1541, and he died in 1552. It is probable that his brother Salimbene assisted him, and Piccolpasso names his son Vincentio as possessor of the lustre secret. Possibly the latter was the painter who signed his wares with the initial N, but this conjecture rests solely on the ingenious, but unsupported notion that N is a monogram of the first three letters of the name Vincentio. Other initials, M, D, R, also occur on Gubbio plates, and the latest dated example of the ware is signed by one "Mastro Prestino" in 1557, but it has little to recommend it save that it is enriched with the Gubbio lustres, which after this time entirely disappear.

The old majolica shapes are briefly as follows:--among the earliest
are small bowls (_scodette_), often with flattened sides; jugs
(_boccali_) with large lip-spouts, and mouths pinched into trefoil
form; large dishes with gradually shelving sides (_bacili_), or with
flat broad rims and deep centres; akin to these are the plateaux with
a raised flat disk in the centre; small dishes with broad flat rims
and deep though narrow central walls (_tondini_), suitable for handing
a wine-glass or sweetmeats; flat trencher-shaped plates (_piatti_ or
_taglieri_); saucer-shaped dishes on low feet and sometimes with
moulded sides (_tazze_ or _fruttieri_) suitable for holding fruit.
Among the vase forms ovoid shapes with short necks and a pair of flat
handles are common in the Tuscan wares of the 15th century; the jars
for confectionery, drugs, or syrups were often of the cylindrical form
with graceful concave sides known as the "_albarello_," in shape of
Eastern origin, and in name perhaps derived from the Persian _el
barani_ (a vase for drugs, &c.); other vase forms with spouts and
handles were used for the same purpose; ornamental vases after
classical designs (_vasi a bronzi antichi_); and in the best Urbino
period a great variety of fanciful forms--ewers, vases, cisterns,
shells, salt-cellars, ink-pots, &c., with applied masks and serpentine
handles, were made in the exuberant taste of the time. A complex piece
of furniture for the bedside of ladies in childbirth (_vaso
puerperale_) consisted of a bowl with a foot surmounted by a flat
trencher on which fitted an inverted drinking-bowl (_ongaresca_); and
above this again a salt-cellar with cover. Many of these shapes were
suited to daily use, but the richly decorated majolica was designed to
adorn the walls, the _credenze_, table-centres and cabinets of the
rich. This alone could have been the destination of the large dishes
(_piatti di pompa_) with rim pieces for suspension, and the smaller
dishes (_coppe amatorii_) with portraits of young men and girls and
lovers' symbols; and it is inconceivable that the costly lustred wares
of Gubbio or the fine _madreperla_ dishes of Deruta were designed for
anything but decorative use. The ware was in fact an article produced
for the wealthy in the century of Italy's glory, and under no other
conditions could such magnificent and expensive pieces have been made.

_Technical Methods._--This is a convenient place to give an account of
the methods used by the early medieval potters--(1) because they
represent what had been learnt from Roman times to the 16th century,
and indeed to the introduction of modern methods, (2) because, besides
all that a potter could derive from an examination of the wares, we
have ample written accounts of the methods and processes followed by
the Italian majolist. Mr Solon has recently published an epitome of
the account given in Biringuccio's _La Pyrotechnica_ (Venice, 1540),
and there is the memorable MS. of Piccolpasso, a potter of Castel
Durante, now in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which,
besides giving an account of the processes, contains illustrations of
kilns, mills, decorative motives, &c.[16]

1. The potter's clay was prepared from mixtures of various kinds
prepared by (a) beating and picking out coarse particles, (b) mixing
with water, (c) passing through a sieve, (d) drying again into plastic
clay ready for the working potter. The essential point about the
potter's clay of the best tin-enamelled wares, whether Spanish,
Italian, French or Dutch, is that the clays are those known
geologically as "marls," which contain a large percentage of carbonate
of lime. Such clays always fire to a pinky red or buff colour, and
give a ware that is strong and yet light in substance, and on no other
kind of clay does the tin-enamel display its full perfection (see
Deck's _La Faience_). The analyses of certain tin-enamelled wares are
useful as showing the essential constitution of the best pottery
bodies for such purposes.

+----------------+---------+-----------+--------+----------+
| | Delia | Majolica. | Delft. | French |
| | Robbia. | | | Faience. |
+----------------+---------+-----------+--------+----------+
| Silica | 49.65 | 48.00 | 49.07 | 48.65 |
| Alumina | 15.50 | 17.59 | 16.19 | 17.05 |
| Lime | 22.40 | 20.12 | 18.01 | 19.43 |
| Magnesia | 0.17 | 1.17 | 0.82 | 0.27 |
| Oxide of iron | 3.70 | 3.75 | 2.82 | 4.33 |
| Carbonic Acid, | | | | |
| water, &c. | 8.58 | 9.46 | 13.09 | 10.27 |
+----------------+---------+-----------+--------+----------+

2. _Shaping._--The vessels were either "thrown" on the potter's wheel
(which had remained practically unaltered from Egyptian times), or
they were formed by "pressing" thin cakes of clay into moulds, made of
a composition of plaster (_gesso_), bone-ash and marble dust. In the
latter way all shapes that were not circular were made, as well as
those with heavy bosses or gadroons imitated from embossed metal
forms. It is interesting, though not surprising, to note that for the
fine later wares, the roughly thrown vases, when sufficiently dry,
were recentred on the wheel or were placed in a joiner's lathe and
smoothed to a clean and accurate surface. The Greek potters did the
same, and this practice must always be followed where fine painting or
gilding is afterwards to be applied. In the later florid vases of the
Urbino style the piece was built up of thrown parts and moulded parts
(handles, masks, spouts, &c.), luted together with slip when they were
dry enough to be safely handled, and then retouched by the modeller or
vase-maker, a method followed to this day for elaborate pieces of
pottery or porcelain.

Rhodian or Turkish: 16th century.

Syro-Persian: 13th century.

Rhodian or Turkish: 16th century.

Rhodian or Turkish: 16th century.

Damascus: 16th century.

Persian, lustre and underglaze colour: 13th century.]

3. _The Glaze._--The white enamel which formed at first both the glaze
and the ground for painting upon--_bianco_, as it was called--was
prepared in a complicated way. A clear potash glass (_marzacotto_) was
made by melting together clean siliceous sand (_rena_) and the potash
salt left as the lees of wine (_feccia_). This corresponds to the
alkaline glaze of the Egyptians with the substitution of potash for
soda. Such a glaze alone would have been useless to the Italian
potter, and accordingly the _bianco_ was made by melting together
thirty parts of _marzacotto_ and twelve parts of lead and tin ashes.
The white enamel as used was therefore a mixed silicate of lead and
potash rendered opaque with oxide of tin.

4. Pigments (_colori_) were compounded from metallic oxides or earths;
the yellow, from antimoniate of lead, which was mixed with oxide of
iron to give orange; the green, from oxide of copper (the turquoise
tint given to the Egyptian and Syrian glazes by oxide of copper is
impossible with a glaze of lead and tin); and the greens were made by
mixing oxide of copper with oxide of antimony or oxide of iron; blue,
from oxide of cobalt, used in the form of a blue glass (_smalto_, or
_zaffara_); brownish-purple, from manganese; black, from mixtures of
the other colours; and the rare red, or reddish brown, of Faenza and
Cafaggiolo was probably the same Armenian bole that was used so
magnificently by the makers of the Turkish pottery, but on the white
enamel ground this colour was most treacherous and uncertain. It must
be remembered that many of these colours owe their tint to the lead
used in their composition, or to the grounds containing oxides of lead
and tin on which they were painted. Piccolpasso describes the
preparation and composition of the various colours used in his day.

5. _Coperta_, or transparent glaze. In the later majolica a thin
coating of soft rich glaze was applied over the fired painting to give
a smooth bright surface. This _coperta_ was a soft lead glass
consisting of silica (sand), 20 parts; oxide of lead, 17 parts;
potash, 12 parts; and common salt, 8 parts; fused together and then
finely ground in water.

6. _Methods of Glazing and Decorating._--In the mezza-majolica and the
early majolica it is probable that the clay vessel was dipped in the
white bath to give it an envelope (_invetriatura_) before it was fired
at all; but it must soon have become apparent that it was much better
to fire first the shaped vessel until it was about as hard and brittle
as a clay tobacco-pipe, and then coat it with the white enamel, by
dipping it into a bath or pouring the fluid material upon it. This was
the practice described by Piccolpasso. A coating of white enamel, the
thickness of glove leather, having been obtained, the piece was
carefully taken by the painter, who first etched in the outline on the
absorbent powdery ground, and then shaded the figures, landscapes,
&c., in blue or in a mixture of blue and yellow, adding the other
colours as gradated washes. The vase was then fired a second time to a
heat greater than the first, so that the enamel was melted on the
vessel and the colours sunk into the enamel at one and the same
operation. This method of painting on the unbaked enamel demanded a
bold direct treatment--for alteration or retouching was
impossible--and much of the vigour of the earlier designs is due to
this fact. As the ware became more refined in its treatment it was
felt that this method did not yield a sufficiently brilliant surface,
and so the painted and fired piece was coated with a film of _coperta_
and fired again at a slightly lower temperature to make it smoother
and more glossy. Still pursued by the idea of rivalling the triumphs
of pictorial art, the majolist carried his methods a step farther. The
white enamel coating was fired before painting, giving a glossy
surface on which the painter could draw or wipe out, and so could
execute outlining, tinting, or shading of the utmost delicacy. A film
of _coperta_ was then washed over the painting, and the piece was
fired a third time in the cooler parts of the kiln. In some instances
it is not easy even for an experienced potter to decide which method
has been pursued, owing to the softening of the colours. Generally we
should expect that the later and more pictorial pieces had been
painted on a ground of fired white enamel, and we may be absolutely
certain when delicate white patterns have been "picked out" in a
coloured ground.

Where lustre decoration has been added to a piece of majolica it
indicates, as elsewhere, the use of a special process, and a final
firing at a lower heat. The lustre pigments were the same as those
used on the earlier lustred wares, and these were painted over an
otherwise finished piece. To obtain the lustre effect these were
placed in a special kiln, so contrived that when the pots were just
visibly red the smoke of the burning fuel (rosemary or gorse) was
allowed to play upon them long enough to drive the metallic films
(silver or copper) into the already-fired glaze.[17]

_Collections._--The Victoria and Albert Museum contains perhaps the
most widely representative collection in the world, especially as at
the present time the pieces of the Salting and Pierpont Morgan
collections are on exhibition there. The British Museum collection is
valuable, being rich in "signed" pieces of the first quality. The
Wallace collection and the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford (Fortnum
collection, &c.) are also valuable and contain some remarkable
examples. The Cluny Museum, the Louvre and the museum at Sèvres have
fine collections; while noteworthy pieces are to be found in the
Ceramic Museum at Limoges. In Germany the museum at Brunswick contains
one of the largest collections known, but many inferior and doubtful
examples. Berlin, Munich, Vienna and St Petersburg have noteworthy
collections. In Italy, the Bargello at Florence and the museums of
Venice, Milan, Turin, Faenza, Pesaro, Urbino, Rome and Naples all have
collections, whilst interesting examples of local manufactures are to
be found in many of the smaller Italian towns. The American museums,
especially those in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, have some fine
examples.

LITERATURE.--F. Argnani, _La Ceramiche et maioliche faentine_ (Faenza,
1889 and 1903); D. Bonghi, _Intorno alle Majoliche di Castelli_
(Naples, 1856); Professor Douglas, "Siena," in the _Nineteenth
Century_, September 1900; Hensel, _Essai sur la majolique_ (Paris,
1836); G.I. Montanari, _Majoliche dipinte nella collezione del N.S.C.
Domenico Mazza_ (Pesaro, 1836); L. Frati, _Di un insigna raccolta di
majoliche_ (Bologna, 1844); also _Di un pavimento in majolica_
(Bologna, 1853); J.C. Robinson, _Italian Sculpture of the Middle Ages_
(London, 1862); E. Darcel, _Musée du Louvre: Notice des faïences
peintes_; Drury E. Fortnum, _Contribution to the History of Pottery_
(London, 1868); Delange, _Recueil de faïences italiennes du XV^e au
XVII^e siècle_ (Paris, 1869); M. Meurer, _Italienische Maiolika
Fliesen_ (Berlin); E. Molinier, _Les Majoliques italiennes en Italie_
(Paris, 1883), also _La Céramique italienne au XV^e siècle_ (Paris,
1888); C. Piccolpasso, _I tre libri dell' arte del Vasajo_, Castel
Durante 1548 (original MS.) and translations by C. Popelyn, Paris,
1841 and 1860, also Italian editions of Rome and Milan; V. Lazari,
_Notizia della raccolta Correr_ (Venice, 1859); Drury E. Fortnum, _A
Descriptive Catalogue of the Majolica in the South Kensington Museum_
(London, 1873); Beckwith, _Majolica and Faience_ (New York, 1877); G.
Corona, _La Ceramica_ (Milan, 1878); G. Vanzolini, _Istoria delle
fabbriche di majoliche metaurensi_ (Pesaro, 1879); A. Genolini,
_Majoliche italiane_ (Milan, 1881); Mely, _La Céramique italienne_
(Paris, 1884); J.E. Jacobsthal, _Süd-italienische Fliesen_ (Berlin,
1886); Bertolotti, _Figulini, fonditori, e scultori_ (Milan, 1890); H.
Wallis, _Italian Ceramic Art_ (1897), _The Oriental Influence on the
Ceramic Art of the Italian Renaissance_ (1900), _The Art of the
Precursors_ (1901), _The Majolica Pavements of the Fifteenth Century_
(1902), _Oak-leaf Jars: A Fifteenth Century Italian Ware_ (1903), _The
Albarello_ (1904), also _Seventeen Plates by Nicola Fontana_ (1905),
and _Italian Ceramic Art: Figure Designs_ (1905); Tesorone, _L'Antico
Pavimento delle Logge di Raffaello in Vaticano_ (Naples, 1891);
Columba, _Il "Quos Ego" di Raffaello_ (Palermo, 1895); Drury E.
Fortnum, _Majolica_ (London, 1896); also _Fortnum Collection in the
Oxford Museum_ (London, 1896); O. von Falke, _Majolika_ (Berlin,
1896); also _Sammlung R. Zschille: Katalog der italienischen
Majoliken_ (Leipzig, 1899); Antaldi Santinelli, _Museo di Pesaro_
(Pesaro, 1897); De Mauri, _L'Amatore di Majolica_ (Milan, 1898); E.
Hannover, _De Spanske-Mauriske, og de forste Italienske Fayence_
(Copenhagen, 1906). (R. L. H.; W. B.*)

FRENCH POTTERY FROM THE 15TH TO THE 19TH CENTURY

The pottery of medieval France needs little attention here, for it was, in the main, similar to that which was made generally in Europe--rudely shaped vessels of ordinary clay often decorated with modelled ornament and glazed with yellow or brown lead glaze, or, if coated with white slip, decorated with bright green glazes, and towards the end of the 15th century with greyish blue. The later specimens of this simple ware--pronouncedly Gothic in feeling--were often extremely decorative. Avignon, Beauvais and Savigny are the best-known centres of this truly national manufacture, and, as we might expect in French work, the reliefs are often sharp and well designed. Evidence accumulates that from time to time the princes and great nobles imported Spanish or Italian workmen to make special tiles for the decoration of their palaces or chapels. The duke of Burgundy brought Jehan de Moustiers and Jehan-le-Voleur, "_ouvriers en quarrieaux peints et jolis_," in 1391, to paint tiles for his palaces at Hesdin and Arras in the north, and we have already referred to the tile-work in the Spanish fashion made at Poitiers by John of Valencia, the "Saracen," in 1384 for Duke Jean de Berry.[18] Other instances might be multiplied but that this foreign work left little or no traces on contemporary French pottery. Even at a later date, when Francis I. brought Girolamo della Robbia from Italy to decorate his "Petit Château de Madrid" in 1529, or when Masseot Abaquesne, about 1542, manufactured at Rouen the painted tile pavements for the château of Ecouen, the cathedral of Langres, and other places, nothing came of the imported methods; the works were executed and left no traces on the general pottery of the country. During the 16th century, however, two remarkable kinds of pottery were made in France of distinctive quality, and both eminently French--the Henri-Deux ware and the pottery of Bernard Palissy and his imitators.

_Henri-Deux_, _Oiron_ or _St Porchaire_ ware, for all these names have in turn been applied to the enigmatic and wonderful pottery, specimens of which are now valued at more than their weight in gold, was once believed to have been made by the librarian Bernard, and his assistant Charpentier, for their patroness Helène de Hangest about 1529 at her château at Oiron, near Thouars.[19] A few years ago this theory was discarded in favour of one which assigned them to some unknown potter of St Porchaire in the same region;[20] but even of this theory there is insufficient proof, and we are left in doubt both as to the maker and the place of origin. All we know is that the ware dates from the reign of Henry II., and that it was probably made somewhere near Oiron, as most of the specimens have been found in that district. The work is _sui generis_, for it had no direct ancestry, neither did it leave any mark on contemporary French pottery. Sixty-five pieces of the ware (see fig. 48) are known to be in museums and private collections; the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum have the best collections of their kinds, but the Rothschilds still hold the greater number of examples. The ware is fashioned in a simple whitish pipeclay, and ornamented with interlacing strap-work patterns, typical of the period, inlaid in yellow, buff or dark-brown clay. The forms are generally graceful, but some examples are over-elaborate and overloaded with modelled ornament. The pieces were designed to serve as candlesticks, salt-cellars, tazzas, ewers, holy-water pots and dishes. After the vessels had been "thrown" and "turned" to a perfect shape, metal tools, such as were used by the bookbinders and casemakers of that day, were pressed into the clay, so as to form sunk cells of ornamental tooling. These cells were carefully filled with finely-prepared slips of other clays, that would burn yellow, buff or dark-brown; and when the whole was dry the piece was carefully smoothed again, and moulded reliefs were attached, or touches of colour were applied. After being fired the ware was glazed, apparently with the ordinary lead glaze of the time carefully prepared and fired again. At a later period the ornament was not inlaid in this elaborate manner, but was simply painted, as indeed it might all have been so far as decorative effect is concerned.

_Palissy Ware._--Bernard Palissy was a genius of original talent, but, at the hands of his literary admirers, he has gained a legendary rank as one of the great potters of the world which his pottery does not warrant. He is supposed to have spent sixteen years in the search for the white enamel which was being used all the time in Italy and Spain--probably he was searching for the mystery of Chinese porcelain--and when he settled down to make the "Palissy ware," he did nothing more than carry to perfection the methods of the village pot-makers of his own district. On a hard-fired red clay he disposed groups of moulded plants, shells, fish and reptiles, painted them with crude green, brown and yellow colours, and glazed the whole with a well-prepared lead glaze. His style soon had numerous imitators, like A. Cléricy and B. de Blémont, who executed works quite as good as those of their master; but their works also vanished and left no permanent impression on the general trend of French pottery.

Meantime Italian, and, it may be, Spanish potters strayed over the French border and attempted to introduce the manufacture of their tin-enamelled wares; for we know of the works of Gambin and Tardessir of Faenza, established at Lyons about 1556; of Sigalon at Nîmes in 1548; of Jehan Ferro at Nantes about 1580, and other sporadic efforts. The needed impetus came, however, when the Mantuan duke, Louis de Gonzague, became duke of Nevers in 1565; and we find Italian majolists, working under princely patronage, planting their decadent art in the centre of France. The first efforts met with little success until, with the appearance of the Conrades from Savona, who were domiciled in Nevers in 1602, we get the genuine ware of Nevers. Naturally the first productions, whether of the Conrades or their predecessors, were in the style of the debased majolica of Savona, but the body and glaze of the ware is harder, the colours are not so rich, and the execution is less spirited. The first departure from Italian traditions is seen in the ware of the so-called "Persian style" of Nevers--probably adopted from contemporary work in Limoges enamels on metal--where conventional and fanciful designs of flowers and foliage, birds, animals or figures were thickly raised in white enamel on a ground of bright, intense cobalt-blue glaze. After the middle of the 17th century the Italian style of design appears to have been entirely replaced by pseudo-oriental patterns painted in blue or in polychrome, but really imitated from the "Delft" copies of Chinese and Japanese porcelain. When Rouen and Moustiers became famous for their distinctive wares Nevers copied their designs also, and on a gradually descending scale the manufacture continued to the end of the 18th century, when France was flooded with the rude _Faiences patriotiques_ from this centre.

The genuine French tin-enamelled ware, freed from the traces of Italian influence, first developed itself at Rouen under the famous Poterats in the later part of the 17th century. A new scheme of ornamentation was gradually evolved in the daintily-designed scalloped and radiating patterns adapted from oriental fabrics, lace and needlework, and from the ornamental devices of contemporary printers. These designs, having been skilfully drawn on the pieces, were filled in with bright blue, strong yellow, light green, or a bright bricky-red in palpable relief, applied as flat washes or in fine lines; and the result was a gay and sparkling ware much superior in decorative value to the later Italian majolicas (see fig. 49). So successful was this Rouen ware that rival factories were quickly started at Saint Cloud, Sinceny, Quimper, Lille, and other places in the north. Saint Cloud and Lille made fine pottery of this class at the end of the 17th and in the early 18th century. It was imitated at Nevers, the potters' marks shown being those of J. Bourdu and H. Borne. In the south of France, Pierre Clérissy established the industry at Moustiers in 1686, and, though the early Moustiers ware bears a strong resemblance to the debased Italian majolica of the time, the Moustiers painters soon left that behind, and on a glaze of inimitable whiteness and softness they deftly pencilled blue patterns based on the engravings of designs after Berain, Marot and Toro. At a later date Olerys, who had been to Alcora to introduce the French faience into Spain, returned to Moustiers and introduced a pale polychrome style very inferior to that of Rouen. These pieces are covered with patterns outlined in blue and filled in with yellow, pale green and light purple. Olerys is also said to have introduced the grotesque style of Moustiers, founded on the caricatures of Callot. Other factories were started from Moustiers, such as those at Apt, Ardus and Montauban, and even at Narbonne, Bordeaux and Clermont-Ferrand; just as the northern factories had sprung from Rouen.

We have already seen at Nevers the introduction of patterns in the Chinese style, and the same course was increasingly followed at all the French factories during the 18th century. At Strassburg a fresh impetus was given in this direction when, about 1721, Charles Hannong introduced the practice of painting his white tin-enamelled ware with the on-glaze colours used by the porcelain painters. This process enabled the French potter to produce many colours unobtainable by his older process, and moreover helped him to make his wares look more like the coveted porcelain, then becoming the rage all over Europe. This new departure marks the end of the best period of French faience, but so successfully did it meet the demands of the time that it gradually displaced the old method of decoration where the colours were painted on the raw glaze and fired along with it. Factories sprang up for the manufacture of this new ware in the first half of the 18th century at Niederviller, Lunéville and Sceaux, and it was quickly adopted by the older factories at Rouen, Sinceny, Marseilles, &c. With its general adoption the old French faience, developed from the Italian stock, departed, to make way for a tin-enamelled imitation of _famille-rose_ porcelain. But this last style was not of long life. The wealthy classes were no longer patrons of pottery but of porcelain, and when, after 1786, the newly perfected English earthenware was thrown upon the French market, the French faience-makers had to give up their works, or adopt the manufacture of this neater and, for domestic purposes, more suitable form of pottery. This change, together with the disturbances of revolutionary times, brought artistic pottery in France to a standstill, and we shall treat of its revival during the last forty or fifty years in a subsequent section.

_Collections._--The Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum
contain typical examples; but not such collections as are to be seen
in the Cluny Museum, the Louvre, the museum at Sèvres, or the French
provincial museums at Rouen, Limoges, Marseilles, Lille, St Omer, &c.

LITERATURE.--Deck, _La Faience_ (Paris, 1887); Gasnault and Garnier,
_French Pottery_ (Victoria and Albert Museum Handbooks, 1884); Le
Breton, _Le Musée céramique de Rouen_ (Rouen, 1883); Milet, (?)
_Historique de la faience et de la porcelaine de Rouen_ (Rouen, 1898);
Pottier, _Histoire de la faience de Rouen_ (Amiens, 1870); L'Abbé H.
Requin, _Histoire de la faience artistique de Moustiers_, tome I^er
(Paris, 1903); M.L. Solon, _The Old French Faience_ (London,
1903)--the best survey of the whole subject, with a very full
bibliography. The various volumes of the _Gazette des beaux-arts_
contain many valuable original articles. (W. B.*)

GERMAN, DUTCH AND SCANDINAVIAN POTTERY

In northern Europe until the time of the Renaissance the making of tiles is the only branch of the potter's craft of artistic rank. The pavement tiles of Germany of the Gothic period, examples of which have been found in the valley of the Rhine from Constance to Cologne, often bear designs of foliage or grotesque animals full of character and spirit. Their decoration is effected either by impression with a stamp of wood or clay, or by "pressing" the tile in a mould to produce a design in relief. The surface is sometimes protected by a lead glaze--green, brown or yellow--but is generally left unglazed.

Glazed tiles with relief ornament were also made as early as the 14th century for the construction of stoves, such as have continued in use in Germany to the present day. About 1500 a development took place in the combination of glazes of different colours on a single tile. In the middle of the 16th century Renaissance ornament appears in place of Gothic canopies and tracery, and blue and white enamels begin to be used in combination with lead glazes of other colours. Figures in the costume of the period, or shields of arms, in round-arched niches are a favourite motive alike in the stove tiles and in the wares of similar technique known as _Hafnergefässe_, which have been wrongly attributed to Hirsvogel of Nuremberg. These were made not only in that city but also in Silesia and at Salzburg, Steyr, and elsewhere in Upper Austria; their manufacture continued into the 18th century.

Imitations of Italian majolica with polychrome painting on a white enamelled ground were first made in southern Germany about 1525, and it is with these wares that the name of Hirsvogel should really be associated. The same style survived for more than a century and a half in the stoves and pottery made by the Pfau family at Winterthur in Switzerland, from the end of the 16th century onwards. An interesting development is exhibited by certain rare productions, of Silesian origin, dating from about 1550, with decorations in coloured enamels which are prevented from flowing together by a strong outline incised in the clay.

_Stoneware_.--The most important feature of the history of German pottery is the development of stoneware along the valley of the Rhine. This ware is of a highly refractory white or grey body of intense hardness, glazed by the introduction of salt into the kiln when the highest temperature was reached. It was exported in large quantities through the markets of Cologne and Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) to England, France and other parts of northern Europe. The frequent occurrence in its decoration of the arms of foreign cities and princes shows that the German potters were alive to the requirements of foreign customers.

The oldest centre of this manufacture seems to have been at Siegburg near Coblenz, where the white stoneware peculiar to the neighbourhood, made from local clay, must have been made and exported in considerable quantities at least as early as the 15th century; plain beer-jugs of that date with cylindrical neck and slightly swelling body have been unearthed in London and the eastern counties of England. In the 16th century an artistic development took place, and the potters were formed into an exclusive gild under stringent regulations. The manufacture lasted till the sack of the town by the Swedes in 1632, subsequent attempts to re-establish it being unsuccessful. This ware, of a creamy white colour, generally thinly glazed and only rarely coloured by staining with cobalt blue, is decorated by impression with small stamps or by the application of reliefs pressed from separate moulds. The motives include sacred and classical figure subjects, portraits of contemporary sovereigns, and armorial bearings, with accessory foliage in which a survival of Gothic feeling is often perceptible. Characteristic forms are the high tankard (_Schnelle_) and the ewer with long spout (_Schnabelkrug_), but the fancy of the potter also found expression in various quaint or extravagant forms.