March, 1916 
31 
COLLECTING 
ITALIAN MAIOLICA 
GARDNER TEALL 
Readers of House & Garden who are 
interested in antiques and curios are 
invited to address any inquiries on these 
subjects to the Collectors’ Department, 
House & Garden, 440 Fourth Avenue, 
New York, N. Y. Inquiries should be 
accompanied by stamps for return post¬ 
age. Foreign correspondents may enclose 
postage stamps of their respective 
countries. 
Maiolica plate, gold lustre and blue, 
profile portrait (subject unknown). 
Deruta, circa 1510-1520. Victoria 
and Albert Museum, London 
Maiolica plate, blue and white; sub¬ 
ject, “Amorino on a horse,” ara¬ 
besque dolphin border. Deruta, 
1530, Victoria and Albert Museum. 
W HETHER one is a general col¬ 
lector or a collector of pottery 
and porcelain in general, Italian maio- 
lica (one may also spell it majolica ) 
will be found to be one of the most 
interesting of “lines,” historically as 
well as intrinsically. Pottery, both 
soft and hard, is distinct from porce¬ 
lain, although the term “old china” is 
commonly used to embrace the whole 
field of ceramics—unfortunately, 1 
think, as it is of importance to the 
collector to be precise in the matter of 
definitions. 
Pottery, as distinguished from por¬ 
celain, is formed of potter’s clay with 
which marl of an argillaceous and 
calcareous nature and sand in varying 
proportions have been mixed. The 
wares usually designated in England 
as earthenware are soft pottery. Its 
characteristics are that it may be 
scratched with a knife or file, and it 
is, generally speaking, fusible at por¬ 
celain furnace heat. 
Soft pottery may be divided into 
four sorts: unglazed, lustrous, glazed 
and enameled. Nearly all the ancient 
pottery of Egypt, Greece, Etruria and Rome was unglazed, lus¬ 
trous or glazed, while the centuries later maiolica of Italy was 
of the fourth sort; that is, an enameled or stanniferous glazed 
ware, the art of which was originally learned, we may suppose, 
from either the Moorish potters of Maiorca (one of the 
Balearic Islands) or perhaps from certain Persian sources 
The Source of Maiolica 
Italian maiolica was originally called 
maiorica, a name which later gave way 
to maiolica, as the Tuscans more often 
wrote it that way, even when refer¬ 
ring to the Island of Maiorca, as one 
may guess from the rime of Dante 
where is to be found reference to “Tra 
I’isola di Cipri e Maiolica .” The 
coarser ware of half-maiolica— messa- 
maiolica —is not to be confused with 
the true maiolica, which is a tin-enam¬ 
eled pottery, lustered. It is more 
proper to limit the term maiolica to 
these tin-enameled, lustered wares. 
The Italians ascribe to Luca Della 
Robbia the discovery of the tin-glaze, 
some time prior to 1438. We have no 
dated piece of Florentine or of Tuscan 
maiolica antedating 1427, and of this 
year but one dated example. The next 
earliest dates—1507 and 1509—appear 
on maiolica of the Caffaggiolo fabrique. 
In the 18th Century, as Chaffers 
tells us, Italian maiolica was called 
Raphael ware “on account of an im¬ 
pression which existed that Raphael 
himself condescended to paint on some 
of the ware. The idea probably orig¬ 
inated from the fact that many designs 
were reproduced on maiolica by the 
ceramic artists from engravings by 
Raphael and other great masters. The 
best period of this pottery was, how¬ 
ever, subsequent to his death, which 
took place in 1520.” The accompany¬ 
ing illustration of a Caffaggiolo mai¬ 
olica plate of early date depicting Ra¬ 
phael and La Fornarina watching a 
maiolica decorator at work suggests, I 
think, that had Raphael himself taken 
a hand at maiolica painting that fact 
would have led the artist of the plate 
to have shown Raphael at such occu¬ 
pation instead of portraying him merely 
as an onlooker. Again, Raffaelle Colle, 
who designed maiolica for Leonora 
Gonzaga, wife of Guidobaldo I, Duke 
of Urbino, may have been confused 
by early students with Raffaelle Sanzio, 
the great Raphael. 
Of the development of maiolica in Italy, Fortnum, an English 
authority, says the Twelfth, the Thirteenth and the Fourteenth 
Century native Italian wares were produced in various places. 
Some of these wares still exist in the towers and faqades of 
churches, and of a palace at Bologna. These are lead-glazed, 
rudely painted or with single colors, and in some instances 
graffiato, proving that the use of a white 
slip or engobe was known in Italy at 
that period, as affirmed by Passeri, who 
further asserts that in 1300 the art as¬ 
sumed a more decorative character 
under the lords of Pesaro (the Mala- 
testas). 
The Colors Used 
Having thus attained an even, 
opaque, white surface the development 
of its artistic decoration steadily ad¬ 
vanced. The colors used were yellow, 
green, blue and black, to which we 
may add a dull brownish red, noticed 
in some of the Pisan bacilli. Passeri 
states that the reflection of the sun’s 
rays from the concave surfaces of these 
bacini at Pesaro was most brilliant, 
and hence it has been wrongly inferred 
that they were enriched with metallic 
luster, an effect that may well arise 
from iridescence on the surface of the 
soft lead glaze, easily decomposed by 
“Virgin and Child, with two kneel¬ 
ing figures of the donor and his 
son.” North Italian, 15th Century. 
This passed from the Gavet Collec¬ 
tion to the Morgan Collection 
T54^ <H _| f A- 
The mark of Orazio Fontana of 
Urbino 
Maiolica bowl; subject, "Samson 
Slaying the Philistine.” Urbino, 1 6th 
Century, by Orazio Fontana. Now 
in the Morgan Collection 
