Attributed to the workshop of Virgiliotto Calamelli (act. 1531-1570)

Fernand Adda Collection (1906 - 1942), Paris and Cannes;

His sale, Palais Galliera, Paris, Collection d'un Grand Amateur, 29 November-3 December 1965, lot 551;

Cyril Humphris, June 1967, cat. no. 32;

His sale, Sotheby's New York, Cyril Humphris Collection, 10 January 1995, lot 33;

Where acquired.

Cyril Humphris, 69 Pieces of Islamic Pottery and Italian Maiolica from the Adda Collection, London, 1967. 

Cyril Humphris, 69 Pieces of Islamic Pottery and Italian Maiolica from the Adda Collection, London, 1967, cat. no. 32. 

The allegorical female figure in the centre of this plate is painted in the 15th century tradition and called the Tarocchi. The style of the central roundel is close to that of The Painter of the Bergantini Bowl and the earliest crespina of this type, may have been made in the Bergantini workshop. The decoration is organised around the central boss painted with a standing female allegorical figure holding a spear. Similar female figures depicting allegorical figures or Virtues, probably painted by the same hand, are listed by T. Wilson, (op. cit., Turin 2018, no. 9, p.158).

From the central boss-roundel are radiating dynamic alternate-coloured compartments of paneled decoration with grotesque foliage called a quartieri, following the terminology of Cipriano Piccolpasso. The border is divided, following the molded pattern, into twelve spiraling segments with leaf scrolls on a blue ground and dolphin scrolls on an orange ground; there are 16 panels with scrolling leaves in the lobes at the edge.

This type of crespina was made in several Faenza workshops and some of the best were produced by Virgiliotto Calamelli, who signed with the mark “VRAF”, including one formerly in the Adda Collection; one in the Museo Civico Medievale, Bologna; and another in a European Private Collection. (T. Wilson, op.cit., Turin 2018, no. 5, p. 158).

This type of mold-made plate is one of the most popular and successful maiolica designs made in Faenza primarily around the second quarter of the 16th century. The earliest dated example is the molded bowl in the collection of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia which is dated 1538 and illustrated in Wilson and Sani (2006-7, I, op. cit., no. 27).

The form recalls the shape of silver bowls of the same period, and they are likely to have been used as table decoration to hold fruit or sweets. 

RELATED LITERATURE

T. Wilson, The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica Painting. Catalogue of a private collection, Turin, 2018, n°67, pp. 158-159 ;

C. Ravanelli Guidotti, Thesaurus di opere della tradizione di Faenza, Faenza, 1998, figs. 1, 2, pp. 366-367 ;

T. Wilson, Italian Maiolica of the Renaissance, Milan, 1996, n° 60, pp. 128-129 ; n° 61, pp. 131-132 ;

C. Ravanelli Guidotti, Ceramiche Occidentali del Museo Civico Medievale di Bologna, Bologna, 1985, n° 74, p. 99 ;

T. Wilson, E. P. Sani, (with the collaboration for vol. II of Carola Fiocco, Gabriella Gherardi, Marino Marini, and Claudio Paolinelli), Le maioliche rinascimentali nelle collezioni della Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia, Perugia, 2006-7, I, n° 27.