Workshop of Orazio Pompei
A spouted pharmacy jar
No reserve
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 EUR
Lot Details
Description
Italian, Castelli, circa 1550-1560
A spouted pharmacy jar “Orsini-Colonna” type, painted with two half- length busts in profile flanking the dragon spout, below in gothic script the name of the content “Oleum de Capparib” (oil of capers) within white band. The underside scratched with pharmacy marks to indicate the bottle’s weight.
Tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica)
27cm., 10⅝in.
Christie's London, 17 February 1969, lot 195;
Sotheby's London, 16 March 1976, lot 30;
Christie's London, 5 December 1994, lot 311;
Enrico Cavaglià, Lugano, 1995;
Rainer Zietz, London;
Where acquired, in February 2010.
This type of jar, known as the “Orsini-Colonna type” a name which derives from a jar in the British Museum (see Thornton and Wilson, op.cit., 2009, vol. I, no. 338, pp. 540-544) which includes a bear hugging a column, emblematic of the great Roman families Orsini and Colonna. The contents were an oil derived from capers; the form with a dragon spout was a favourite used for Castelli syrup jars.
RELATED LITERATURE
C. de Pompeis et al., Le Maioliche Cinquecentesche di Castelli, exh. cat., Pescara, 1989, nos. 391-393, 399;
D. Thornton, T. Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics: a catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London 2009, Vol I, no. 338, pp. 540-544.
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