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Lot Essay
The dexter half of the arms (signifying the male) may possibly be the Caldogno family of Vicenza, and the lower quarter of the sinister side is for the Colleoni of Bergamo.
Puzzle-cups, which were designed to trick the user, were mentioned by Piccolpasso in his discussion of ‘standing vessels’(1). He called puzzle-cups tazze da inganno, but did not mention puzzle-jugs. He noted ‘…if I were to begin to extend myself on the subject of vessels without a mouth, and puzzle cups, which are things which have no rules, I should run on too long’(2).
It is possible that the triton carrying a nymph may have been inspired by a similar grouping of figures in Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving of the Triumph of Galatea after Raphael, although the transposition is not exact.
A puzzle-jug of similar form in Philadelphia illustrated by Wendy M. Watson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, The Howard I. and Janet H. Stein Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, December 2001-April 2002 Exhibition Catalogue, Philadelphia, 2001, p. 173, cat. 88. A Faentine puzzle-cup with four spouts around its rim is illustrated Timothy Wilson, Tin-Glaze and Image Culture, the MAK Maiolica Collection in its wider context, The MAK, Vienna, April – August Exhibition Catalogue, Stuttgart, 2022, p. 73, no. 35.
1. Piccolpasso was a soldier and administrator from Castel Durante who wrote a detailed treatise, Li tre libri dell arte del vasaio, on the making of maiolica in about 1557 at the request of a visiting French Cardinal who was interested in establishing a similar industry in France. The treatise seemingly did not reach the Cardinal, but survived, incredibly, in the form of a single manuscript copy and was published in the 19th century.
2. Cipriano Piccolpasso, The Three Books of the Potter’s Art, translated and edited by Ronald Lightbown and Alan Caiger-Smith, Vendin-le-Vieil, 2007, Book 1, p. 53.
Puzzle-cups, which were designed to trick the user, were mentioned by Piccolpasso in his discussion of ‘standing vessels’(1). He called puzzle-cups tazze da inganno, but did not mention puzzle-jugs. He noted ‘…if I were to begin to extend myself on the subject of vessels without a mouth, and puzzle cups, which are things which have no rules, I should run on too long’(2).
It is possible that the triton carrying a nymph may have been inspired by a similar grouping of figures in Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving of the Triumph of Galatea after Raphael, although the transposition is not exact.
A puzzle-jug of similar form in Philadelphia illustrated by Wendy M. Watson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, The Howard I. and Janet H. Stein Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, December 2001-April 2002 Exhibition Catalogue, Philadelphia, 2001, p. 173, cat. 88. A Faentine puzzle-cup with four spouts around its rim is illustrated Timothy Wilson, Tin-Glaze and Image Culture, the MAK Maiolica Collection in its wider context, The MAK, Vienna, April – August Exhibition Catalogue, Stuttgart, 2022, p. 73, no. 35.
1. Piccolpasso was a soldier and administrator from Castel Durante who wrote a detailed treatise, Li tre libri dell arte del vasaio, on the making of maiolica in about 1557 at the request of a visiting French Cardinal who was interested in establishing a similar industry in France. The treatise seemingly did not reach the Cardinal, but survived, incredibly, in the form of a single manuscript copy and was published in the 19th century.
2. Cipriano Piccolpasso, The Three Books of the Potter’s Art, translated and edited by Ronald Lightbown and Alan Caiger-Smith, Vendin-le-Vieil, 2007, Book 1, p. 53.