ITALIAN MAIOLICA APOTHECARY SYRUP JAR
PESARO OR CASTEL DURANTE, CIRCA 1579
£1,000
Auction: 22 October 2013 at 18:00 BST
Description
the ovoid body with flaring neck, short spout, broad strap handle and an associated knop possibly from a missing cover, painted in green, blue, ochre and yellow with an oval panel of the female figure of Fortune standing on a sea monster holding a billowing sail aloft on the broad strap handle, all on a ground of musical and armorial trophies; bearing an inscription on a band below the handle 'O.NENVFAR', probably for olio nenufaro (water-lily oil)
Dimensions
19cm diam, 25.5cm high
Footnote
Provenance:
In the collection of the family of the present owners since the late 19th / early 20th century. Entries in the family archives suggest that maiolica was acquired between 1894 and 1916 from three different sources: from G. Donaldson in 1894 (with two items bought from the Spitzer Collection) in 1896 and in 1897; from H.A. Peto in 1899 and from S.M. Crossley in 1908 and in November 1916.
Note:
For identical jars see this catalogue lot 7 and jars (dated 1579) all probably from the same series, in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, in R.E.A. Drey, Apothecary Jars, London, 1978, cat 24D, page 6 and the Louvre, in Jeanne Giacomotti, Catalogue des Majoliques de Musees Nationaux, Paris, 1974, cat.984, p. 321). See also lot 2 of this sale for a pill pot probably from the same series. See Wendy Watson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics - The Howard I. and Janet H. Stein Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, (Philadelphia, 2001), p.209, cats 80 A and B for an overall discussion of this series decorated with the female figure of Fortune. See R.E.A. Drey ''Apothecary Jars'', (London, 1978), p.217 for reference to the contents.