CIRCA 1430-70, VALENCIA (PROBABLY MANISES)

The Ridolfi family were one of the most powerful Florentine dynasties and were linked by marriage to both the Medici and Strozzi families. A number of hispano-moresque armorial chargers and table wares commissioned by important Florentine families are recorded, most with similar 'bryony flowers' and these include pieces for the Medici, Bardi and Gianfigliazzi families. Timothy Wilson notes that wealthy Tuscan families were linked to Valencia through trade within the region of the western Mediterranean. Several wealthy Florentine banking dynasties had branches in Valencia and presumably it is through this connection that Florentine families commissioned armorial lustreware from Valencia, see Timothy Wilson, Ceramic Art of the Italian Renaissance, London, 1987, p. 28.

For an almost identical charger with the Ridolfi arms in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, see Marco Spallanzani, Maioliche Ispano-Moresque a Firenze nel Rinascimento, Florence, 2006, p. 261, pl. 31.