ANTIQUING IN
MALTA
THE DE VALLETTE HELMET AND OTHER FINDS
ROBERT ATTARD ROMINA AZZOPARDI MAIN PHOTOGRAPHY
KEVIN CASHA
Published by Midsea Books Ltd 68 Carmelites Street, Sta Venera SVRN1724, Malta Tel: +356 2149 7046 Fax: +356 2149 6904 www.midseabooks.com
Literary Copyright Š Robert Attard, 2015 Editorial & Photographic Copyright Š Midsea Books Ltd, 2015 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the previous written permission of the authors. First published in 2015
Produced by Mizzi Design and Graphic Services Ltd, Malta Printed at Gutenberg Press Ltd, Malta Copy editing: Martin Bugelli Photo editing: Joe P. Borg ISBN: 978-99932-7-522-0
To Roberta, RenĂŠe, Nick, Tim, Jack and Seby
“It will be as when a man who was going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one—to each according to his ability. Then he went away. Immediately the one who received five talents went and traded with them, and made another five. Likewise, the one who received two made another two. But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money. After a long time the master of those servants came back and settled accounts with them. The one who had received five talents came forward bringing the additional five. He said, ‘Master, you gave me five talents. See, I have made five more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.’ … Then the one who had received the one talent came forward and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter; so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.’ His master said to him in reply, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter? Should you not then have put my money in the bank so that I could have got it back with interest on my return? Now then! Take the talent from him and give it to the one with ten. For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” Matthew 25:14 - 25:30
ANTIQUING IN MALTA: THE DE VALETTE HELMET AND OTHER FINDS
CONTENTS
Introducing ‘Antiquiting’ Giovanni Bonello
7
Is this de Valette’s helmet?
13
Terracotta and Stoneware
27
Maiolica and other Tin-Glazed Ceramics
33
Oriental Artefacts The Oldest Oriental Piece in a Maltese Collection (c.AD. 960
41
Lost Treasure • The Grandmaster’s Helmet • The Publication of the Odescalchi Collection • Is this Jean de Valette’s helmet? • But is the helmet original? Could the escutcheon be a forgery? • Is this de Valette’s lost helmet? • The issue with the helmet’s provenance • Laking and his reputation • Going Forward An Interesting Roman Saucer (c.200 AD) • A Fragment from a Roman Opus Scutulatum (c.125 to 50 BC) • Neolithic Antiquities • Egyptian Antiquities • Exceptional German Stoneware Brilliant Lusterware • Museum-Quality, Hispano-Moresque Ware • Maiolica • An aarly Maolica Tazza (1680-1700)
and 1127) • Ceramics from the Ming Gap • Sukhotai Fish Bowl c.1370 • Fine Sisatchanalai Celadon (c.1460) • A Parrot bowl and Other Precious Ceramics from the Hoi An Hoard (c.1480) • Yixing Teapots (1830) • Ming Duck Plates c.1625 • The Quality of Imperial Ware (c.1830) • Horse-Riders from the Ca Mau c.1725 •
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ANTIQUING IN MALTA: THE DE VALETTE HELMET AND OTHER FINDS
Fine Crockery from the Ca Mau c.1725 • A Fine Punjabi Helmet c.1800 • Ottoman Arms and Armour • A Persian lusterware jug from Rayy, Iran, c.1200
Fire, Arms and Armour
55
Fine Portraits
67
A ‘Petto Forte a Prova di Moschetto’ (c.1658) • A Composite Late 16th Century Suit of Armour • The Helmet of the Great Siege c.1560-1580 • A Helmet of the type known as ‘Alla Viscontea’ c.1630 • Funerary Helmets c.1550-1600 • A ‘Knight’s Pistol’ c.1759 • A Finely Engraved Saxon Powder Flask as used by the Knights of Malta (c.1608) • A Helmet for the Gioco del Ponte Tournament (c.1520-1650) • A Very Early Italian Burgonet c.1520 • The East India Company and the Napoleonic Wars (c.1790-1815) A Portrait of Paul de La Rivoire dated 1669 • Works of the Favray School • The Oldest Known Portrait of Grandmaster L’ Isle Adam (Sixteenth Century) • Important Modern Works of Art
Maltese Views – ‘veduti’ 75 A Large Harbour View by Giovanni Schranz (c.1830) • A Naïf Watercolour from the Early British Period (c.1800) • More Unpublished Artists Who Painted Malta • Robert Baden-Powell, A Painter of Maltese Subjects • One of the Largest Known Collections of Cammillieri Ship Portraits • An Unpublished Maltese View by Krasnoff (c.1920) • Claude H. Rowbotham’s Earliest Known Harbour-View (1892) • An Imaginary Mons Harbour-View (c.1820)
Old Masters
87
Numismatica and Exonumia An original Bolla Capitolare of the Knights of Saint John c.1500 •
97
Christie’s Judith with the Head of Holofernes (17th Century) • Works of the the Preti School (17th Century) • The Oldest Known Portrait of Cardinale Verdala, Circle of Filippo Paladini (17th Century) • A Curious 17th Century Sketch • More Old Masters • A Kurċifiss tax-Xitan (17th Century) • A Finely-Etched Comb Morion by Claiessens c.1600
Byzantine Coins • Unpublished Maltese Romano-Punic Coins
Furniture and Silver
Knights’ Chairs (19th Century) • A Spectacular Inlaid bureau (c.1700) • An Interesting Dutch Chest of Drawers (c.1700) • A Fine Pair of
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103
ANTIQUING IN MALTA: THE DE VALETTE HELMET AND OTHER FINDS
Late Seventeenth Century Maltese Armchairs • Maltese Coffers Carved with Grandmasters’ Coat-of-Arms • An Imposing Seventeenth Century Cupboard • A Maltese Seventeenth Century Commode • Silver Lampadas • The Ximenes Salver (1774)
Twentieth Century Memorabilia
115
Books, Manuscripts and Curiosa
133
The First World War • A Demobilisation Certificate signed by Methuen • More Silk-Work Pictures • Great War Helmets • Artefacts belonging to the King’s Own Malta Regiment’s Bandmaster • The Second World War • Second World War Art • Prisoner of War Souvenirs • A Large Fragment from a Junkers 88 A-5 German Bomber • Second World War Military Helmets • A ‘Maltese Document’ Signed by a Mussolini Henchman • Post-War Personality Items • The Ensign of the Governor of Malta’s Motor Boat A Curious Sketch Book • A Rare Account of the French Invasion of Malta • An Interesting Napoleonic Caricature • Documents from the Saint-Allais Archives • A Passport Embossed with Malta’s First British Coat-of-Arms • Documents signed by leaders of the French Invading Army • A Letter from One of the Bravest Knights of Malta of All Time • Documents Proving the Prince of Paterno’s Fiefdom over the islands of Malta and Gozo • A ‘Maltese’ Document Signed by Pietro Nenni • A Papier-mâché Statue – La Pescatrice Maltese • A Papier Mâché and Painted Wood Statue – A German Knight of Malta • Costume
Epilogue 149
A Virtual Museum • Artefacts Chosen for Publication • The de Valette helmet, an enigma • The de Rohan Musket • Printed Matter of Historical Importance • Exceptional Late Arrivals • An Eighteenth Century manuscript documenting the admission of a French Countess to the Order of Malta • A Music Score by Nicolò Isouard • The Graham Uniform • Heritage in Peril • The Market • Architectural Antiques • A Word on Fakes and Forgeries • Items of Museum Quality
Extracts from Critical Acclaims to other books by the author
171
About the authors
173
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ANTIQUING IN MALTA: THE DE VALETTE HELMET AND OTHER FINDS
INTRODUCING ‘ANTIQUING’ GIOVANNI BONELLO
DR ROBERT ATTARD is turning into a highly prolific melitensia benefactor. On his own, or with his wife Romina, hardly a year passes by without a publication that bears their name. Dr Attard is a leading tax lawyer, but the exigencies of his profession have not managed to smother his cultural inquisitiveness, nor has it stood in the way of sharing his research passions, and his discoveries, with the public. Dr Attard is following a long and worthy tradition in the Maltese cultural chain: that of professional lawyers or physicians gaining full membership in the marketplace of culture. It is extraordinary what these ‘amateurs’ have contributed cumulatively to the profiling of Malta over the past two centuries, notwithstanding the barely-hidden dismissiveness of some professional academics who dislike intrusions into their patch. I have found a kindred spirit in Dr Attard – except that tax law is of the faintest interest to me only when it can be made to overlap the fringes of human rights law. This time round Dr Attard is sharing with his readers the adrenalin of discovering and collecting antiques. A passion indelibly linked with societal and historical developments. What had started as the hobby of kings and popes and princes and princely bankers, eventually followed the destinies and the ebbs and flows of political democracy. In Malta, the compulsion to identify with antique collecting started as an aristocratic adjunct: grandmasters, the Maltese nobility and the wealthier and more illustrious knights. With aristocracy waning and democracy expanding its frontiers, there was at first a noticeable slump in interest in anything wrapped in the cobwebs of the past. ‘Aristocratic’ collections were dispersed with an equal lack of passion in the sellers as in the buyers – much ended actually destroyed or deliberately binned. It was my father’s fate to be dismissed as moħħu fl-antikalji, almost 9
ANTIQUING IN MALTA: THE DE VALETTE HELMET AND OTHER FINDS
as bad as being branded a cheat or a flasher. He suffered the loneliness of knowing. The third phase in the evolution of collecting is the one we now identify with the democratisation of cultural achievement. Today large swathes of the population have a genuine interest, or fake an interest to somehow keep up with those who genuinely have an interest. Votes and antiques for all, in the cynical manner. From ostentation to learning, in the less cynical one. I do not feel the need to reassure anyone that Dr Attard belongs to the authentic cultural democrats. His cravings have no affinity with the Joneses, whose success is measured by their ability to keep up with more Joneses. It is all linked with the gratification of sleuthing and discovering, possessing and sharing, knowing and enchanting. Another positive development in antique collecting is the shift from the object itself to the context of the object. In early archaeology, the aim of the exercise was almost exclusively the recovery of things ancient and beautiful, much more than the analysis of what the context of those things could say about the society which expressed them. Today, archaeology is more concerned with the study of the physical and cultural environment in which objects are found. Similarly, in antique collecting, the emphasis has now shifted from the possession of objects to the attempts to understand the whys and the hows of these objects. Likewise, at the dawn of the era of the collecting mania, it was only the most wonderful artefacts made by man or by nature that were deemed worthy of showing off in the collections of sovereigns and their emulators. Today it is more the cultural pregnancy of the artefact that makes it desirable, as much as its beauty, rarity and intrinsic value. Not everything has to be museum quality or cost the treasure from King Solomon’s mines in order to fit in comfortably with a preferred collecting schema. This book showcases examples on both extremities of the rainbow, and demonstrates how even objects less than spectacular can bear witness to something worth bearing witness to. The common thread between them is melitensia, and how every collectible item is relevant to an over-arching understanding of our past and of our destiny. Dr Attard never gets carried away irretrievably, but I have rarely seen him as close to that as when he recently discovered the morion of Grandmaster Jean de Valettte in a Roman museum. That moment held the elation of a significant sighting, followed by the mortification of having his achievement questioned and sidelined. That is the fate of pioneers, to be understood by a few and misunderstood by all the others. His quest for the truth about that hallowed helmet is one of the highlights of this book. I am proud to have been of some guidance to him when this breakthrough occurred. In the internet era, a lot of the finding and the detecting fun has gone out of collecting. Today, at the click of a mouse, anyone has access to anything 10
ANTIQUING IN MALTA: THE DE VALETTE HELMET AND OTHER FINDS
of interest available all over the world. Search engines have replaced secret contacts and reticent sources, middlemen and plenty of legwork and haggling. Today, the successful collector is not, generally, the one with an inexhaustible passion, but the one with an inexhaustible credit card. Those who are expert at navigating the internet have witnessed an inversion: before, worthwhile finds could be few and far between. Demand exceeded supply. Today, internet has made the whole world a market place. In some collecting sectors, supply exceeds demand. Another major trend of modern internet collecting is a ‘patriotic’ inversion of previous trends. Hundreds of objects which belonged squarely to the Maltese cultural context and which had over the years, legally or stealthily, migrated overseas, are now returning to base. That goes for paintings, silver, furniture, maps, arms and weapons, faience, coins and anything else collectible. It is extraordinary how much was dispersed, especially during the 19th and 20th centuries. Slowly some of those ‘Maltese’ objects have embarked on the return journey. Another feather in the cap of collectionism. Dr Attard’s book will hit different readers in different ways. Some will go through it to gain knowledge and practical information while others will be fired by a spirit of gentle envy to out-do the author. To others still it will be the ‘Open Sesame’ to the magical world of cruising through the past with the aid of what the past left behind for us to reverie about. It fulfilled me on the three agendas.
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