Drug jar
Category
Ceramics
Date
1585 - 1620
Materials
earthenware, tin-opacified lead glaze, polychrome pigments
Measurements
515 mm (Height)
Place of origin
Urbino
Order this imageCollection
Knightshayes Court, Devon
NT 540402
Summary
Large drug jar, earthenware with tin-glaze (maiolica), straight-sided, the two side handles formed as harpies (winged female figures) above lion-type masks, attributable to the Patanazzi Workshops, Urbino, late 16th or early 17th century; painted with a scene from the Old Testament, Exodus 12, the Sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb with Aaron and Moses, who carries a staff, and on the reverse a siege is depicted.
Full description
The form of the drug jar resembles two others at Knightshayes (NT 540394 and NT 540419), though smaller. The group is similar to two large jars with covers surmounted by griffins, in the Palazzo Apostolico (Apostolic Palace), in the pilgrimage town of Loreto, Italy. There is a famous pharmacy set in the Palazzo, and the large jars may have been from a set delivered from Urbino in 1631. However, as one of the Knightshayes jars has a coronet in the decoration, the group may have been from a different order, and probably of earlier date, made for a member of the nobility rather than an ecclesiastical pharmacy. See Floriano Grimaldi, Loreto, Palazzo Apostolico, (Bologna, 1977), p. 104, Nos. 636 and 637; Mallet, Treasure Houses (1985), p. 573; and J.V.G. Mallet correspondence (13/01/04). From the large collection formed in the mid-19th century by the antiquarian Reverend Thomas A. Berney (1815-1895), of Bracon Hall, Norfolk; by descent to Miss Berney, sold at Sotheby & Co., London, Catalogue of Fine Italian Majolica, 18 June 1946, the last item of three in lot 6, ‘A pair of large Albarelli of cylindrical shape with winged caryatid and mask handles, painted on both sides with lovers and putti in panels bordered with cornucopiæ and caryatids, 21 in.; and another with a siege on one side and a sacrifice on the reverse, 20in. (repaired), mid-16th Century’. The lot purchased for 10 guineas (£10.10s.00d.) at the Berney sale by "Sir J Amory", Sir John Heathcoat-Amory (1894-1972), 3rd Bt., of Knightshayes Court; the house, part of the collection, the garden Sir John and Lady Heathcoat-Amory created, and part of the estate were bequeathed to the National Trust by Sir John Heathcoat-Amory in 1972. The maiolica was later given by Joyce, Lady Heatcoath-Amory (1901-1997), née Wethered, a celebrated golfer.
Provenance
purchased by Sir John for £5