Drug jar
Category
Ceramics
Date
1565 - 1571
Materials
earthenware, tin-opacified lead glaze, polychrome pigments
Measurements
228 mm (Height)
Place of origin
Urbino
Order this imageCollection
Knightshayes Court, Devon
NT 540409
Summary
Wet drug jar, earthenware with tin-glaze (maiolica), small size, of baluster shape, with a spout and handle in the form of serpents, probably Fontana Workshops, Urbino, Italy, c. 1565-71; painted with a seated queen by a lake surrounded by mountains, attended by winged amorini supporting a banner inscribed ‘O.VIOLATO’ [syrup of violets]. The jar is part of a set of vessels (see also NT 540393.1-.2, and NT 540401.1-.2).
Full description
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”. 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, lot 37 ‘An Urbino Set of two Dry Drug Jars and a Wet Drug Jar, painted with a seated figure of a queen flanked by cherubs against a blue mountain range background, trees and rocks in the foreground, the pharmacy ewer with shell and mask handles, the drugs printed in blue on white labels, 9 ¼ in., workshop of Orazio Fontana, circa 1540 (repaired)’. The lot purchased for 45 guineas (£47 05s. 0d.) 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 Heathcoat-Amory (1901-1997), née Wethered, the leading British woman golfer of the inter-war period.
Provenance
same set at C/43 From Lady Amory
Marks and inscriptions
'o violato' in blue on the lower half