Fiasca araldica in maiolica bianco di Faenza e Compendiario alle armi di Ferdinando Arciduca d'Austria e di Anna Caterina Gonzaga probabilmente Bottega di Leonardo Bettisi, detto Don Pino, Faenza, circa 1582

In data 5 Maggio 2011 il Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali ha comunicato il preavviso del diniego dell'attestato di libera circolazione.

On 5 May 2011 the Ministero per I Beni e le Attività Culturali advised that export licence will not be granted.

This flask is one of the few survivors from a credenza service made for Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (1529-1595) and his second wife Anna Caterina Gonzaga (1566-1621) to celebrate their marriage at Innsbruck on 4^th May 1582. Thirteen pieces are currently known in public collections, comprising ten dishes, two bowls, and a coffee pot dispersed between the Tiroler-Landes-Museum, Innsbruck, the Schlossmuseum, Berlin, the Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, and the Castello di Scena in Italy.

During the first half of the 16^th century, the maiolica workshops in Faenza, already considered  technically the best in Italy, slowly developed the process for a richly opaque and pure white glaze. In 1540, the merchant Pier Agostino Valladori in partnership with the maestro Francesco Mezzarisa produced the first service of 138 white glazed pieces. They had successfully found the delicate recipe for stabilizing white enamel- "concordare totum colorem album"- resulting from a perfect proportion of tin, earth, sand and lead at a very precise firing temperature.

This technical breakthrough combined most fortuitously with a Papal order of 1566 forbidding the displaying of services of silver and gold, in favour of ceramics. The new demand for armorial services with a similar effect to engraved silver put the Faenza ceramic workshops at an advantage. The traditional rich polychrome istoriato styles gave way to the new effects possible on the polished white enamel ground.  Decoration became lighter and more elegant,  sketched in compendiario style using s narrow range of colours. At the same trime, the workshops focused on inventing and creating new shapes in tune with metalwork originals, such as ribbed bowls, or cups with scalloped rims, pierced-bordered fruit bowls, and so on.

In accordance with the wishes of a host of newly ennobled mercantile families, and again in silver style, their coats-of-arms were often depicted on their own, standing out on the rich white ground in much the same way as the engraved arms on silver services.

Large services to be displayed on a credenza (buffet) were thus commissioned by many of the most illustrious European families. The celebrated bianchi di Faenza quickly came to symbolise the superior quality of Faenza ceramics so that the neologism Faenza / faience became the most used synonym for maiolica throughout Europe.

The members of the Gonzaga family, Marquises and then Dukes of Mantua, were great patrons in the vanguard of the fashion of the times. The first Duke, Frederico Gonzaga II (1500-1540), had commissioned from Guilio Romano the Palazzo di Te. One of the fresco illustrates the nozze di Amore e Psiche with a wonderful silver-gilt and white maiolica credenza. Later his descendant Camillo IV Gonzaga, conte di Novellara (1521-1595) was to commission in about 1590 a service of 610 pieces from Leonard Bettisi, the then leading maestro in Faenza.

Leonardo Bettisi, called Don Pino de Bettisi, was first recorded in 1564 but the major date in his life is 26 October 1570 when he took over the workshop of the great maestro Virgiliotto Calamelli. In 1568, he produced his first large service (307 pieces) for Francesco I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1541-1587). Together with his son Antonio, he then produced other various services for illustrious figures from Italy and Europe such as Albrecht V of Bavaria in 1576 and his son William V in 1590. In spite of the absence of documentation and marks, it is very likely that the service offered today was also made by his workshop, as well as the service made for her brother's marriage to Eleonora de Medici, two years afterwards.

Anna Caterina Gonzaga, O.S.M (1566-1621) married on 4 May 1582 her uncle the archduke Ferdinand II of Austria (1529-1595), son of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I (1503-1564). When he was made the principal sovereign of Tyrol in 1563, he ordered two Italian architects to build the Ambras Castle, then a medieval fortress, in Innsbruck, Austria. The castle was used as the official residence of Philippine Welser, his first untitled wife whom he married in secret. He also housed there his collections of weapons, armour, portraits, and curiosities, the famous Chamber of curiosities, which has survived to the present day in the same setting since its inception. When Anna Caterina moved to her husband's residence, she helped developing the collection with magnificent jewels and silver. It is interesting to note that at Ferdinand's death, the inventory also mentioned five maiolica plates with the Austrian arms, all with the marks of Virgilitto Calamelli. Anna Caterina remained in Ambras after the death of her husband, consecrating herself as a Servant of Mary. Many other families in her environs, however, followed her taste and collected the white glaze ceramic pieces, like the von Taxis, Bertoldi d'Enno or Perkhofer, whose armorial pieces are now also in the collections of the Schloss museum.