Workshop of Pietro and Paolo Bergantini Italian, Faenza, circa 1525-30

Guidi family, Faenza;

their sale, Galleria G. Sangiorgi, Rome, 21-27 April 1902, lot 44;

with Brimo de Laroussilhe, Paris

E. Bertrand (ed.), Sculpture et objets d'art precieux du XIIe au XVIe siecle, Brimo de Laroussilhe, Paris, 1993, pp.72-73, no.15

On loan at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Maine, 2010-23

This fine maiolica plate displays a border decoration on a berrettino ground, which was the standard glaze type in Faenza from circa 1520. The lavender blue decorations against a cobalt blue ground include grotesques of masks, dolphin scrolls, and open books accentuated with white enamel. A female matyr decorates the centre of the plate, holding a martyr's palm and wearing a light blue dress and vibrant yellow cloak.

The Bergantini workshop run by brothers Piero (documented from 1503-40) and Paolo (documented from 1507-41) was one of the most important ceramic manufactures in Faenza during the first half of the 16th century. Close comparison can be noted to several plates produced in the Bergantini family workshop, including a plate with the arms of Bindo Altoviti and his wife Fiametta Soderini in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. no.WA 1899.CDEF.C475), and to a plate including a half-length female matyr with similar dress illustrated by Timothy Wilson (op. cit., 2018).

RELATED LITERATURE

D. Thornton and T. Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics: a catalogue of the British Museum collection, Vol. I, 2009, no. 79, p. 126, no.81, p. 133; T. Wilson, The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica Painting, Allemandi, Turin, 2018, no. 62, p. 149; T. Wilson, Italian Maiolica and Europe, exh. cat. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2017, no. 33, p. 88-90