"This volume in a series of sixteen that features the more than two thousand works of art in the Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art focuses on Italian majolica or earthenware." -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

The Museum’s outstanding collection of maiolica is significant because most of the major pottery centers, maiolica forms, and styles are represented. This current catalogue presents the collection in a chronological progression according to stylistic trends. Lavish color plates accompany the detailed entries

The form of tin-glazed earthenware known as maiolica reveals much about the culture and spirit of Renaissance Italy. Engagingly decorative, often spectacularly colorful, sometimes whimsical or frankly bawdy, these magnificent objects, which were generally made for use rather than simple ornamentation, present a fascinating glimpse into the realities of daily life. Though not as well known as Renaissance painting and sculpture, maiolica is also prized by collectors and amateurs of the decorative arts the world over. This volume offers highlights of the world-class collection of maiolica at the Metropolitan Museum. It presents 135 masterpieces that reflect more than four hundred years of exquisite artistry, ranging from early pieces from Pesaro—including an eight-figure group of the Lamentation, the largest, most ambitious piece of sculpture produced in a Renaissance maiolica workshop—to everyday objects such as albarelli (pharmacy jars), bella donna plates, and humorous genre scenes. Each piece has been newly photographed for this volume, and each is presented with a full discussion, provenance, exhibition history, publication history, notes on form and glaze, and condition report. Two essays by Timothy Wilson, widely considered the foremost scholar in the field, provide overviews of the history and technique of maiolica as well as an account of the formation of The Met's collection. Also featured is a wide-ranging introduction by Luke Syson that examines how the function of an object governed the visual and compositional choices made by the pottery painter. As the latest volume in The Met's series of decorative arts highlights, Maiolica is an invaluable resource for scholars and collectors as well as an absorbing general introduction to a multifaceted subject.

"This book is a full catalogue of the Ashmolean's Italian pottery and also includes tin-glazed pottery from other countries, including Spain, France, the Low Countries, England, and Mexico. It presents a panorama of the achievement of Italian potters and pottery painters, who transformed a technology they learnt from the Islamic world into a vivid form o Renaissance art, which was then diffused across Europe and beyond, creating individual national ceramic traditions."--Publisher's description.

Explores the rich history and ornate styles of these beautiful wares as well as the key role they played in Renasisance society.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ...found in the locality, which Passeri declares to be superior to that of Vicenza, for the superficial coating of the coarser material. Painted majolica was produced towards the close of the fifteenth century. To this several tile pavements of early date bear witness. The earliest one, made for the Oratorio di Santa Caterina in Fontebranda, was begun in 1480 and completed in 1504. Another, of which remains are still in existence, adorned the Bichi chapel in Sant' Agostino. This was the work of two native artists, Pietro and Niccolo di Lorenzo Mazzaburroni, who painted it in 1488. The celebrated pavement of the Palazzo di Pandolfo Petruccio, reproduced in the folio volumes of Brenci and Botellini, was begun in 1509. Had Siena produced nothing more than these admirable pavements, its name would still deserve a place in the roll of the most prominent majolica factories. The possibility of this work having been executed in Faenza--as is the case with the Bologna and other pavements--cannot be entertained. It must be acknowledged, however, that the influence of Faenza, Castel-Durante, Gubbio, etc., is unmistakable. The painters who collaborated in the completion of this gigantic task had been trained in one or the other of these high schools of ceramic painting; each painter has confined his contribution to the general scheme to the introduction of unchanged reminiscences of the style he was wont to practise in former days. The result is an immense variety of detail, a richness of motives unparalleled in a work of such magnitude. But from a medley of designs and effects of colours which, taken separately, remind us of tastes and modes of treatment peculiar to other places, it is almost impossible to determine what could be the characteristics of...