Probably Patanazzi workshop

Rainer Zietz Ltd., London, 2011;

Where acquired.

T. Wilson, J. V. G. Mallet, The Hockemeyer Collection: Maiolica and Glass, vol. II, Bremen: Hauschild, 2012, pp. 60-61.

This pair of tortoises are the only known set composed of one inkstand and one small “container”. A related desk set in maiolica was a tortoise shaped vessel with removable shell (now lost), painted a cerquate and with the emblem of Guidobaldo II Della Rovere (1514–1574), Duke of Urbino, was sold at Sotheby’s New York on 7 February 2025.

Elaborate sculptural maiolica inkstands were considered virtuoso objects meant to impress and were placed prominently on aristocrats’ desks in studioli or Wunderkammer to display prestige and high intellect.

Documents from the late 16th to early 17th centuries show that maiolica tortoises—both functional and decorative—were fashionable in Urbino. Tortoises are also listed in Urbino's Palazzo Ducale inventories of 1596 and 1609. In 1559, Francesco Patanazzi was commissioned by the Duke of Urbino’s sister to create a table service for the Viceroy of Naples, which included una tartaruga. Another notable example was delivered on October 27, 1573, to Cardinal Ferdinando de Medici in Rome by Flaminio Fontana: “A covered vessel of Urbino earthenware in the form of a large tortoise, decorated with grotesques.”

Currently known examples include: a shell cover with putto finial (Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg); a shell cover (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, Hartford) and a tortoise with cover in a private Berlin collection. Two further shell covers are in Castello Sforzesco, Milan, and the Hockemeyer Collection, Bremen. These were likely used as terrine lids, modelled as tortoise shells with interiors featuring scrolling cartouches and depicting Roman scenes after Battista Franco, framed by grottesche in Raphael's style (raffaellesche).

Tortoises also appear in other media. Giulio Romano designed a tortoise-shaped, lidded metal box, and bronze sculptors in Riccio’s circle in early 16th-century Padua created similar forms. The 1631 Della Rovere ducal inventory at Castel Durante lists two silver-gilt tortoises, each with a crab and two snails on the cover. One of the best examples are Giambologna’s reptiles supporting the obelisk in Piazza Santa Maria Novella, Florence, which may have influenced the maiolica pieces made in Urbino.

THE PATANAZZI WORKSHOP 

The Patanazzi family was highly important in Urbino maiolica production over several generations. The word URBINI meaning made in Urbino is commonly painted on wares from this workshop. Probably between 1574 and 1580, the Fontana family workshop appears from documentation to have come under the management of Antonio Patanazzi, a relative of the Fontana. The Patanazzi family were the dominant producers of artistic maiolica, especially pieces of sculptural form and functional objects, often wittily conceived, in Urbino into the seventeenth century.

RELATED LITERATURE

T. Wilson, in L. Hollein, R. Franz, and T. Wilson, Tin-Glaze and Image Culture. The MAK Maiolica Collection in its Wider Context. Catalogue by Timothy Wilson. Vienna/Stuttgart, 2022, no. 72, p. 117;

G. Busti, M. Cesaretti, and F. Cocchi, eds., Assisi 2019. La maiolica italiana del Rinascimento: Studi e ricerche. Proceedings of the conference, Assisi 2016. Assisi/Turnhout: Brepols, 2019;

T. Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics in the Metropolitan Museum Arts, New York, 2016, pp. 300-503, no. 106; 

T. Hausmann, Fioritura, Berlin, 2002, pp. 186-187, no. 74;

R. Ausenda, Museo di Arti applicate, Castello Sforzesco, Ceramiche, Tomo I, Milan, 2000, no. 233, p. 224;

M. Spallanzani, ‘Maioliche di Urbino nelle collezioni di Cosimo I, de Cardinale Ferdinando e di Francesco de' Medici’, Faenza, LXV, 1979, Number 4, p. 119;

F. Sangiorgi, Documenti urbinati. Inventari del Palazzo Ducale (1582-1631), Accademia Raffaello, Collana di Studi e Testi 4, Urbino, 1976;

J. Lessman and R. Zietz, European Works Art and Sculpture, Hanover, 1975, no. 26.