Drug jar
Category
Ceramics
Date
1565 - 1571
Materials
earthenware, tin-opacified lead glaze, polychrome pigments
Measurements
228 mm (Height)
Order this imageCollection
Knightshayes Court, Devon
NT 540401.2
Summary
Wet drug jar (one of two), earthenware with tin-glaze (maiolica), small size, of baluster shape, with a spout and handle in the form of serpents, made in the Fontana Workshop, Urbino, Italy, c. 1565-7; .painted with a seated queen by a lake surrounded by mountains, attended by winged amorini supporting the banner inscribed ‘S.D.EUPATORI’. These jugs are part of a larger set (see also NT 540393.1-.2, and NT 540409, and NT 540401.2).
Full description
The Latin inscription “S.D.Eupatori” describes the contents as Syrup of Eupatorium, which is probably Hemp Agrimony (Eupatorium cannibinum), sometimes used for healing wounds, see Rudolf Drey, Apothecary Jars (London, 1978), p. 202. This is one of five vessels at Knightshayes originally from a large pharmacy set, now dispersed, of which at least 40 are known, all similarly painted with a seated allegorical female figure wearing a crown: it is known as the “Queen” set, and includes albarelli and spouted jars, in various sizes. The set is now believed to have been made in the workshop of Orazio Fontana for the apothecary of the Santuario di Loreto. For examples in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, see Wendy Watson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics from the Howard I. and Janet H. Stein Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, 2001), Cat. No. 78-79; in the Fitzwilliam Museum, see Julia Poole, Italian Maiolica and Incised Slipwares in the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge and New York, 1995), cat. 411; and in the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, see Tjark Hausmann, Majolika: Spanische und Italienische Keramik vom 14. bis zum 18. (Berlin, 1972), No. 215. According to J.V.G. Mallet (correspondence 13/01/04), “For a short time Orazio Fontana separated from the workshop of his father, Guido (Durantino) Fontana and ran his own workshop until he predeceased his father. It is hard or impossible to distinguish the products of these two Fontana workshops”. It is not known where these two were acquired, but they were gifted along with the rest of the maiolica by Joyce, Lady Heathcoat-Amory(1901-1997), née Wethered, the leading British woman golfer of the inter-war period.
Provenance
From Lady Amory