Renaissance-style vase

Giuseppe Cantagalli, Florence, Italy, 1889

Painted maiolica, grostesque ornamentation with cartouches of figurative scenes.

H: 40.5 cm

Markings: Factory mark (cockrel), 10 in blue under the glaze on inside foot

UMP 16765

Purchased at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris.

The vase is listed as “Vaso raffaelleschi” in Giuseppe Cantagalli’s factory catalogue of 1895. The name clearly makes reference to the painted grotesque ornamentation based on the work of Raffaello Santi, a leading artist of the High Renaissance in Italy.

The vase occupied an important place in the Museum of Decorative Arts’ first exhibit inside the former Pilsen Gymnasium (now the Education and Research Library of the Pilsen Region), where it was presented as a typical example of the Italian Renaissance majolica produced in Urbino in the mid- to late-fifteenth century.

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