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Lot Essay
There appears to be a design on the underside of the piece which resembles a pair of legs, see p. 68 for a detail of this.
The N marks are presumably for the name of a workshop or an apothecary, but the significance has yet to be established. This jar is part of a rare group decorated in zaffera diluita rather than zaffera a rilievo with with Ns below the handles. Some of the jars with N marks also incorporate bears (or leopards) in the oak-leaf design, are somewhat shorter and are of a more bulbous form with a short waisted neck.1 This type have been attributed to Montelupo on the basis of fragments excavated there, and have been dated to the second half of the 15th century. The present lot, however, is of a different form. It shares the same form as two earlier pieces illustrated by Galeazzo Cora, Storia della maiolica di Firenze e del contado, Secoli XIV e XV, Florence, 1973, pl. 68 (attributed to Florence, first half of the 15th century) and pl. 101c (attributed to Montelupo, first half of the 15th century).
1. See Cora, ibid., pls. 117a, 118a and 118b, and Carmen Ravanelli Guidotti, La Donazione Angiolo Fanfani, ceramiche dal Medioevo al XX secolo Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza, Catalogue (Ravenna, 1990), p. 29, pls. 12a and 12b, and pls. 12c-12h for further examples. For the example in the Bargello, Catalogo delle Maioliche (Florence, 1971), no. 232.
A much later pharmacy jar, from the early 16th century, of different form and decoration, but also with N marks under the handles, is illustrated by Wendy M. Watson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, From the Howard I. and Janet H. Stein Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Exhibition Catalogue, Philadelphia, 2001, p. 64, Cat. No. 7.
The N marks are presumably for the name of a workshop or an apothecary, but the significance has yet to be established. This jar is part of a rare group decorated in zaffera diluita rather than zaffera a rilievo with with Ns below the handles. Some of the jars with N marks also incorporate bears (or leopards) in the oak-leaf design, are somewhat shorter and are of a more bulbous form with a short waisted neck.
1. See Cora, ibid., pls. 117a, 118a and 118b, and Carmen Ravanelli Guidotti, La Donazione Angiolo Fanfani, ceramiche dal Medioevo al XX secolo Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza, Catalogue (Ravenna, 1990), p. 29, pls. 12a and 12b, and pls. 12c-12h for further examples. For the example in the Bargello, Catalogo delle Maioliche (Florence, 1971), no. 232.
A much later pharmacy jar, from the early 16th century, of different form and decoration, but also with N marks under the handles, is illustrated by Wendy M. Watson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, From the Howard I. and Janet H. Stein Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Exhibition Catalogue, Philadelphia, 2001, p. 64, Cat. No. 7.