Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1880 — Majolica Ware. [ARTICLE]

Majolica Ware.

From the earliest period of its production the ancient art pottery of Italy—celled in the language of the country, “rmyolica,” has attracted the attentions of connoisseurs. For a long time it was known in England as “Raflaelle ware” or “Faenza ware,” and before cariosity hunters had scoured the country, specimens could be obtained in any bric-a-brac shop of Italy for cents, where dollars would now tail to secure it. The common belief that Raflaelle had himself been a painter of plates and dishes, was the cause of wide spread appreciation. Evidence is, however, totally wanting in this direction, and although stripped of interest and no longer attributed to the great painter of Urbino, majolica ware, from its intrinsic value, is highly prized. It is certainly one of the most important items in the category of decorative art, arising as it did from a study of the ornamented pottery produced by the Arabs in Spain, and which during the middle ages were largely imported into Italy. During the fifteenth, sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century, mgjolloa was a great staple manufacture of Italy. Manufactories were founded and fostered by the princes and the status of the workmen was placed above the condition of the ordinary artisan; the artists were “nueetri” enjoying wide repute, and the cities which were the principal seats of the manufacture acquired dignity and importance. Faenza, Urbino, Cartel Durante, Gnhhio and Peearo, were the great centres of the majolica fabrication, and the princes of Urbino were its most noted patrons. Specimens known as “luztred” are the rarest, and these are of various kinds, the ‘-iridescent colors,” “reflets metalliqnes,” “colon cangianti” or madre-perls are really pigments produced by metals deposited on the surface of the ware by some means unknown at the present day. The secret of one of them, the ruby lustre, died out early in the sixteenth century, and seems to have confined to one ceramic artist, Giorgio of Gnhbio. The specimens of this lustre date from 1500 to 1550, and happy is the possessor of a cabinet containing a genuine specimen. The earliest known example of Giorgio’s ware with the signature of the master is 1518 and the latest 1537. Probably the finest collection of works of this character, is the Sonlages collection, formed by M. Jules Sonlages daring a period between 1830 and 1840, and purchased by the English Government in 1856 for the South Kensington Museum for the sum of $65,000.