A CASTELLI TWO-HANDLED 'ORSINI-COLONNA' TYPE JAR

CIRCA 1540-60, ORAZIO POMPEI WORKSHOP

Details

A CASTELLI TWO-HANDLED 'ORSINI-COLONNA' TYPE JAR
CIRCA 1540-60, ORAZIO POMPEI WORKSHOP
Painted with a label inscribed ·diambra· (?) in Gothic script, below a portrait of a woman in a landscape within an orange-ochre-ground arched panel with shaded blue scrolls and shaded blue and yellow foliage, the scroll handles enriched with yellow and blue stripes, the reverse with a band of hatching below scrolling blue foliage, the spreading circular foot with simulated blue gadroons (broken through stem and restored, foot a maiolica replacement, upper part with some lacquer perhaps disguising restored break, chipping to upper rim and glaze of handles, very slight chipping to rim of foot)
9½ in. (24.1 cm.) high

Brought to you by

Dominic Simpson

dsimpson@christies.com +44 (0)20 7752 3024

Lot Essay

For other similar jars, see Giorgio Baldisseri et al., Le Maioliche Cinquecentesche di Castelli, 1989, pp. C50-C51, nos. 334 and 335 (both in the Gillet Collection) and nos. 337 and 339. The Gillet examples are also illustrated by C. Fiocco, et al., Majoliques Italiennes du Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Lyon, Dijon, 2001, pp. 290-291, nos. 192-193. A jar of the same form with a portrait on the front (and a very rare sketch of a woman on the reverse which 'constitutes rare evidence of underdrawing on maiolica') is illustrated by T. Wilson, 'Italian maiolica in the Wernher Collection', Apollo Magazine, May 2002, p. 39, figs. 12 and 13.

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