CASE 4 DERUTA

Deruta is situated south of Perugia near the river Tiber, which provided good pottery clays as well as a route to important markets in Rome. Maiolica was made in the town from the thirteenth century and by the middle of the fifteenth Deruta developed into the principal regional production centre, increasingly specialized in maiolica and developing markets across Italy and abroad.

From the 1460s, metallic lustre was being made in Deruta. It may not have been the first place in Italy to master this technique of Islamic origin, but it was only there that the technique was applied on an industrial scale and by several workshops. Lustre added considerably to the price of maiolica and many of the best-painted pieces of Deruta maiolica are lustred. However, there are also some masterpieces of Deruta maiolica which are not lustred, such as the tiles of a pavement formerly in the church of San Francesco in Deruta, one of which is dated 1524, and many of which were painted by the greatest genius of Deruta maiolica painting, Nicola Francioli, called “Co”.

The most distinctive products of Deruta from the end of the fifteenth century until the 1560s were large deep plates, almost always leadglazed on the back to save on the cost of expensive tin, and often with holes pierced in the foot ring to allow the plate to be hung up on a wall for display. Among these, devotional subjects are common, as are armorials and belle donne, often with moralizing inscriptions.

Bibliography: Fiocco and Gherardi 1988/89, I, and 1994; Busti and Cocchi 1997, 1999, and 2004.

Tiles from the pavement once in the church of San Francesco, Deruta, some of which were painted by Nicola Francioli (“Co”), 1524. Museo Regionale della Ceramica, Deruta

16

Plate, A triumph of the Baglioni

Deruta, c1500–1520

MAK, KE 9553

Hauptinventar no. 37244r

Provenance: source unrecorded; retrospectively inventoried 1962

Tin-glazed on the front; yellowish glaze on the back. There are two holes in the foot ring, made before firing, from which the dish hangs correctly. Outside the foot ring is painted a curling scroll, possibly intended as a letter S Ø 40.5 cm

Condition: broken and repaired. Conservation work at Universität für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, 2021/22

Bibliography: none

On an insecure-looking chariot suggesting the floats used at Renaissance street festivals and recalling the Trionfi of the poet Petrarch, Fortuna, her head or head dress winged, stands on a ball (her frequent emblem); she holds up, as if a kite, a shield with the arms of Baglioni; the chariot is pulled by a griffin.

The Baglioni were the ruling family in Perugia until they were driven out in 1540, when the city and its territory became part of the Papal State. They owned property in Deruta. Their arms are very frequent on Deruta maiolica1 and are sometimes held up by griffins, the heraldic emblem of the city of Perugia2

1 Busti and Cocchi 2004, nos. 8–12; E.P. Sani in Deruta 2018, pp. 68–72.

2 The arms of Baglioni are held up by griffins on large Deruta plates in Lyon (Fiocco et al. 2001, no. 73) and Baltimore (Prentice von Erdberg and Ross 1952, no. 18); also a plate with the arms of a Baglioni bishop supported by two griffins in the Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, probably for Troilo Baglioni, Bishop of Perugia 1501–1506 (Rasmussen 1989, no. 40; Busti and Cocchi 2004, no. 10).

17

Plate, A Turkish horseman

Deruta, c1520–1560

MAK, KE 7981

Hauptinventar no. 30336r

Provenance: bought at the Dorotheum, Vienna, Kunstabteilung sale 490, 12 July 1944, lot 244 (3,000 RM)

Previous provenance unrecorded

Tin-glazed on the front; on the back a brownish semi-translucent glaze Ø 40.2 cm

Condition: minor wear and chipping

Bibliography: Thornton and Wilson 2009, p. 444

A mounted warrior wearing a high turban rides through a hilly landscape. On the border panels of scale pattern alternate with panels of floral volutes.

The image of the Turkish warrior, a constant threat to the countries of Christendom, loomed large in the European imagination, especially in Italy, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among the most common designs on large Deruta dishes of this kind are single figures of horsemen with