A TIN-GLAZED EARTHENWARE DISH MADE IN DERUTA, UMBRIA
Late 20th century
Author's collection
Well it's almost the end of the month again and I can feel autumn coming on here in Lincolnshire. The days are getting shorter, the temperatures cooler at night and some of the summer flowers in the garden are past their best. In a couple of weeks time we'll be off to Italy for 10 days and I'm already making plans for what we'll do there. The biggest thing to contend with this time is my upcoming 65th birthday on September 12th which I've been thinking about a lot this month! It's the time when the government decides one is officially "old" and dutifully pays you the state pension, but its also a time for reflection and adjustment and I'm hoping I don't let my black dog get the better of me at this milestone I'm not looking forward to passing -but enough of that - I'm now looking foward to telling you about my choice of object for the month of September which, as I promised, is a piece of Italian ceramic ware.
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| TWO VIEWS OF THE UMBRIAN TOWN OF DERUTA |
During the course of the last 12 months we've twice been to Deruta in Umbria which is about an hour's drive from our apartment. This little town on the hillside above the Tiber near Assisi has a special place in my mind because of its association with making pots and there's still an active ceramic industry there today. Pottery production - the making of maiolica - reached its peak in the town in the early 16th century when it became well known for its lustre decorated wares and objects made there were highly desirable in elite circles. I've talked about it in many a lecture on the history of Italian tin glazed earthewares so it was a great pleasure to go and see it and visit its splendid museum a few months ago. Products from Renaissance Deruta are hard to find these days and impossibly expensive, so they would never be in reach for me as a ceramics collector. Pieces made there much more recently, however, turn up regulalarly in sale rooms and at markets.
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| DERUTA IS STILL FULL OF CERAMIC SHOPS & WORKSHOPS TODAY |
A few months ago Jon and I went a antiquing to an outdoor fair held several times a year at the old RAF Swinderby airfield near Newark here in the Midlands. We were looking for stuff for our antiques stall at the local centre in Stamford and managed to fill the car with the kind of things we like to buy and sell. Just before we left the fair I was walking along a line of stalls when I came across a bloke who had all his stock laid out on a blanket on the grass. There in the middle of the rug was the ceramic piece I've chosen to discuss this month. Its a large, brightly coloured saucer dish with a hand painted centre and the dealer asked me £50 pounds for it and said he'd only just bought it earlier that morning. I'd recently seen similar dishes on sale in shops in Deruta, Orvieto and Florence for upward of 300 euros so I knew this one was a bit of a bargain. After some vigourous haggling I secured the dish for £35 and it was soon wrapped up and on the way home with us to Stamford. I have it on a stand in my bedroom now and see it every day. Though the subject matter of the central well could be more interesting, the deep blue, yellow, green and brown colours used to decorate it I find cheerful when I'm getting up in the morning and a constant reminder of our part-time life in Umbria 1200 miles away.
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| THE DERUTA DISH PURCHASED AT THE ANTIQUES MARKET |
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| SIGNED ON THE BACK "F. NICCACCI - DERUTA, ITALY" |
The tin glazed earthenware dish, which measures 43 centimeters in diameter, has a narrow yellow rim enclosing a deep flat dark blue ground border hand-painted with a complex ornate pattern of masks flanked by cornucopia alternating with cherub heads perched above confronting dolphins, the whole linked together by repeating scroll and leaf motifs. In the circular well at the centre of the dish is a hand-painted scene of an elaborately dressed and coifed woman holding up a silver cup in her right hand and her left hand supporting a dish piled high with fruit. The predominant colours here are shades of brown, yellow and green. On the reverse, within the basal rim, the dish is signed "F NICCACCI - DERUTA - ITALY."
Tin glazed earthenware pottery has been made in Italy since at least the 13th century. It originated in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) and the techniques spread via North Africa to Spain. Valencia was a major centre of production in the medieval period and exported wares to other Mediterranean countries. In Italy the name "maiolica" is thought to be a corruption of "Majorca" - the island used as a port of export for tin glazed wares travelling from Spain to Italy and beyond.
The technique of making tin glazed ceramics involved (and still does today) coating an earthenware fired body with a lead glaze mixed with tin oxide which produces an opaque, white, chalky surface when air dried. Colours for decoration are produced by mixing more liquid tin glaze with pigments derived from different sources - cobalt for example produces the distinctive blue colour. Traditionally the palatte of colours was limited to just a few - blue, yellow, brown and green, (there was no red) - as they all had to be able to withstand the temperatures of the kiln during any subsequent firing. When the white tin glaze had been air dried, the design was then applied with brushes directly to the chalky surface. If it was a complex design it might be done with the aid of pouncing, a technique involving pricking grease proof paper with the linear design and then placing it over the piece and applying charcoal dust with a pad. One of the problems about painting on tin glaze is that there's no opportunity to correct mistakes - its a bit like painting using the fresco technique. After a further period of drying the pot might then have an additional clear lead glaze added over the top or perhaps a lustre glaze which involved adding appropriate metallic oxides to the glaze and then firing the pot in a reduced oxygen environment causing the deposition of metal over the surface. The finished result would then be lustrous as well as reflective. Lustre glazes were a speciality of Deruta in the 16th century.
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| DECORATING A TIN GLAZED DISH WITH A FINE BRUSH (courtesy of thatsarte.com) |
Essentially the techniques used to make this dish are the ones I've just described - they have hardly changed in centuries and the skills involved in making this one today have been handed down the generations, which brings me round to the designer and maker of this particular pot. The internet is a wonderful research tool and its possible to carry out invaluable work without leaving one's desk at home. I put in F. NICCACCI into google not holding my breath and wasmsurpised to find several entries which would aid my detective work.
I soon discovered the the surname NICCACCI is well known in Deruta ceramic circles. One writer suggested the family had originally hailed from Tuscany but had been involved in making ceramics in Deruta for many generations. A gentleman known as Aldo Niccacci had retired only as recently as 2010 and was famous for making the models of Franciscan friars sold in nearby Assissi gift shops. But my ceramicist is still, it would appear, active today and has a workshop in the Molinella part of Deruta. Her name is Francesca Niccacci. It turned out that Francesca had studied at close by Perugia Academy of Fine Arts and that she'd also been a pupil of well known ceramicist painter and designer Maestro Romano Ranieri who, until his death in January 2015, was artistic director of the School of Ceramic Art named after him in Deruta. Following graduation and after a spell of teaching Francesca set up her own pottery and design studio in Deruta in 1975, first as a single woman and then assisted by her husband and most recently her daughter. Today Francesca and her family make pieces for local, national and international markets and wares range from small utilitarian objects to large impressive pieces like my dish.
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| FRANCESCA NICCACCI - DERUTA CERAMICIST AND DESIGNER AND MAKER OF MY DISH (courtesy of thats arte.com) |
Francesca Niccacci is renowned for work inspired by the ceramics made in Deruta in the 16th and 17th centuries and detailed study of the fine art of the period and historical ceramic wares has been an important feature underpinning her ceramic designs. It's interesting to look at the notable design aspects of my dish to see what inspired it.
In 1480 archaeologists in Rome discovered the buried remains of Emperor Nero's huge pleasure palace, the Domus Aurea or Golden House, not far from the forum. Many of the rooms were decorated with frescos depicting patterns combining motifs which included abstract classical leaves, mythical beasts, masks, cornucopia and the like on a white ground. They became known as "grotesques" - the word derived from the latin word "grotte" meaning underground chamber. It wasnt long before so called grotesque decoration became fashionable and it was extensively used by Raphael in the decoration of the Vatican Loggiae in the early 1500's. Its first use on maiolica is recorded in 1507 but soon it was being used to decorate the borders of elaborate pieces of maiolica like the one shown below made in Faenza c1520. The major difference to be found in this type of Renaissance decoration is the dark blue ground colour - this was not found in Nero's Golden House.
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| GROTESQUE BORDERED DISH MADE IN FAENZA c1520 |
Three quarter length portraits of women were common subjects on early 16th century maiolica dishes made for the upper end of society and Deruta made something of a speciality of them. Many of the females depicted were taken from paintings by artists like Perugino rather than being representations of real individuals. Sometimes they would depict such a woman sideways on, what art historians call a portrait head in profile and reminiscent of the classical images seen on Roman coins and at other times they would show the woman from the front. The example below, made in Deruta in the early 16th century and lustre glazed, is a good representation of the type of originals that would have been looked at and studied by Francesca.
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| DERUTA LUSTRE GLAZED DISH c1510 - 30 |
It's thus possible to see how these two major influences have been combined to design the dish which I discovered at the antiques fair. The only thing I would say, which I find amusing, is that although the blue ground grotesque decoration is refined, detailed and beautifully painted like the 16th century originals, the woman depicted in the centre appears more Sophia Loren than Isabella d'Este!! Was this to make it appeal more to modern tastes? I don't know.
If you would like to see more of Francesca Niccacci's work go to the following link - www.vecchiaderuta.it.
Also visit:
www.thatsarte.com
This is an online business run by two Umbrian ladies called Manuela and Tiziana. They sell wonderful pieces of Umbrian maiolica made by artisans including Francesca Niccacci. Have a look at their website.
If you do get the opportunity to vist Deruta and want to visit Francesca's studio it can be found at:
Ceramiche D'Arte Vecchia Deruta
Via Tiberina Nord
Molinella
Deruta 06053
Umbria, Italy.
This blog has turned out to longer than my usual ones so I hope you've stuck with it to the end. I've enjoyed doing it and I certainly will be visiting Francesca's studio next time I go to Deruta
Ciao, KBO & thanks for reading my posting
Until next time
Ian
