Ceramics and Pottery

Flemish School, 17th century, male.

Born 1587, in Antwerp; died 30 October 1661.

Painter, painter (glass/ceramics), engraver. Animals, flowers, fruit, still-lifes.

Alexander Adriaenssen was a pupil of A. van Laeck and a member of the Antwerp guild in 1610. He was a fine painter of flowers, birds and fish and also painted on glass and pottery, excelling at producing silver tones. A copperplate engraving by him of A. van der Does, after van Dyck, is extant....

Italian centre of ceramic production. The town, situated near Savona in Liguria, was a flourishing centre of maiolica production during the Renaissance. It was, however, only during the 17th and 18th centuries that a distinctive style developed. Important families in the pottery business included the Grosso, Chiodo, Corrado, Salomone, Pescio, Seitone, Seirullo, Levantino and Siccardi, all of whom produced large quantities of polychrome plates (e.g. by the Corrado, mid-17th century; Nino Ferrari priv. col., see Morazzoni, pl. 43), albarelli and vases, which were sometimes inspired by silverware and contemporary delftware. In some cases, yellow and an olive green were used on a turquoise ground. Wares were decorated in a calligraphic style with an emphasis on naturalistic motifs including such animals as leverets; this style later evolved into Baroque forms painted with soft, loose brushstrokes.

In the 1920s the Futurist potter Tullio Mazzotti (1899–1971), who took the name Tullio d’Albisola, revived Albisola’s reputation as a pottery centre. The town continued to produce pottery throughout the 20th century, especially the blue-and-white pottery known as Antico Savona. The Museo della Ceramica Manlio Trucco houses a collection of Albisola pottery from every period....

Portuguese, 17th century, female.

Born c. 1640.

Sculptor.

Daughter of the painter Luiz da Costa, Ignacia Almeida worked in wax and clay. A clay group representing The Death of the Blessed Virgin, in the church of St Roque in Lisbon, was attributed to her.

(fl Lisbon, c. 1720–60).

Portuguese decorative artist. His apprenticeship was probably undertaken with Master PMP, the painter of glazed tiles. His most important commission between 1729 and 1731 was for the panels of blue and white tiles, made in Lisbon, that cover the lower storey of the cloister of Oporto Cathedral, which represent scenes from the Song of Solomon. These panels are characteristic of the High Baroque phase of tile-making and show an appreciation of theatre and stage design in the deepening landscape backgrounds of the figurative panels, in the bold outlines and in the enlarged ornamental framing. The spectacular arched frames of the Oporto panels were influenced by Roman Baroque architectural ornament.

The attractive blue and white panels (c. 1735–45) in the cloister of the monastery of S Vicente de Fora, Lisbon, are attributable to Almeida. They contain landscapes, buildings, gardens, Baroque fountains, hunting scenes and other secular subjects, some after the engravings of ...

Italian, 17th century, male.

Active in Urbino.

Painter, sculptor, potter.

Amantini studied in his native Urbino with Varsajo Bartoccini and subsequently lived in the home of Frederigo Gioja in San Sepolcro. In 1642, his brothers prevailed upon him to give up painting and open a pottery in Urbino. After the death of his father that same year, he gave up pottery to concentrate exclusively on painting. In ...

[Giorgio da Gubbio; Mastro Giorgio]

(b Intra or Pavia, c. 1465–70; d Gubbio, 1555).

Italian potter. He probably learnt the rudiments of pottery at Pavia and seems to have moved to Gubbio c. 1490, together with his brothers Giovanni Andreoli (d c. 1535) and Salimbene Andreoli (d c. 1522). He became a citizen of Gubbio in 1498. He is particularly well known for his lustrewares, and other potters, especially from the Metauro Valley, sent their work to be lustred in his workshop. His wares made in 1518–19 were frequently signed and dated. His istoriato (narrative) wares (e.g. plate decorated with Hercules and the Hydra, c. 1520; Oxford, Ashmolean) can be dated until at least 1537. In 1536 the workshop seems to have been taken over by his sons Vincenzo Andreoli (Mastro Cencio) and Ubaldo Andreoli.

(b Lisbon, 1688; d Lisbon, 1753).

Portuguese decorative artist. He was highly active in the second quarter of the 18th century, during the period when High Baroque glazed tiles were produced in the Lisbon factories. His output was enormous, and his work was distributed throughout Portugal and Brazil. In partnership with his son-in-law, the painter Nicolau de Freitas (c. 1703–65), he continued the tradition of António de Oliveira Bernardes (see Bernardes, António de Oliveira). Under the influence of Joanine wood-carving and silver, the decorative borders of their tiles became richer and more elegant, dominated by grimacing masks and cascading palm and acanthus foliage. The tile makers adapted the convention of using arched frames, which end in garlanded volutes often accompanied by cherubs, for their high dado panels.

Two chapels in the church of Vilar de Frades, Barcelos, dated 1736 and 1742 are decorated with scenes, signed by Antunes and Freitas, from the ...

(b Rovigo, 1486–7; d 1542).

Italian maiolica painter . More is known about Avelli than any other maiolica painter because of his many signed works and the autobiographical details included in his sonnets in honour of Francesco Maria I della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. Avelli considered himself to be not only an artist but also a poet and courtier. His intellectual abilities set him apart from his colleagues, even if as a painter he was not the most talented. He seems never to have directed his own workshop, but he is known to have worked in Urbino from 1530, the year of his first unequivocally signed and dated plate; some pieces from the 1520s signed f.r. and f.l.r. may also be ascribed to him. His familiarity with Classical and contemporary literature is evident in his choice of secular and religious subjects, taken from such authors as Virgil and Ovid, Ariosto and Petrarch (e.g. plate, 1531; London, BM). He also depicted contemporary events, sometimes in allegorical form, for example the Sack of Rome (...

Italian, 16th – 17th century, male.

Active in Reggio.

Sculptor.

In 1573, Vincenzo Bagnoli executed a life-size clay statue of a certain Graziano for the monks of S Procolo in Bologna. In 1584 he worked at Ferrara Cathedral and in 1604 at the Rosario church in Amandola....

(b Sigüenza, Spain, 1649; d ?Lisbon, c. 1703).

Portuguese painter of Spanish origin. He arrived in Lisbon in 1669 and began his career as a decorative painter in the workshop milieu of the city. In the same year he married Agostina das Neves, the sister-in-law of the painter Marcos da Cruz. In 1681–2 he painted and gilded the ceiling of the choir and crossing in S Luís dos Franceses, Lisbon (destr. 1755). Documents show that from 1690 he confined himself to the painting of azulejos (glazed tiles). He contributed to the development of a monumental conception of figured panels and to the use of cobalt blue as the characteristic colour for Portuguese tiles. He developed the use of azulejos to form a unified pictorial design and created a repertory of decorative elements such as friezes of vases, flowers, single motif tiles and patterns. His important works include panels with scenes from the Life of St John the Baptist...

Italian, 17th century, male.

Painter, potter.

Lived in Urbania and was Tommaso Amantini's best pupil. He turned to painting when the public at large began to show a declining interest in ceramics. Some of his work is today on view in Ferro and Cagli.

(bapt Beja, c. 1660; d Lisbon, Oct 4, 1732).

Portuguese tile painter. He served his apprenticeship in Lisbon with Marcos da Cruz. Although António painted in oils, his most important activity was as a painter of azulejos (glazed tiles), in which he assimilated and developed the innovations of Gabriel del Barco y Minusca. He was the leading artist in a group of tile painters who worked during the first third of the 18th century. The high artistic quality of his work influenced both his contemporaries and the following generation through the work of his pupils: Andre Gonçalves (whom he trained between 1701 and 1704), Teotónio dos Santos (1707–11) and Nicolau de Freitas (1720–24). António probably made his own preliminary drawings and used engravings as sources for his work.

António’s first works (c. 1699) were tiled panels depicting the Life of the Virgin and the Infancy of Christ for the Ramada Chapel near Loures (Cascais, Casa de S Maria); they are reminiscent of Dutch tiles in the use of colour, the depth and translucence of the painting and in the strength of his draughtsmanship. In works from the early years of the 18th century his painting developed a very personal and expressive ...

(b Lisbon, 1695; d 1778).

Portuguese tile painter, son of António de Oliveira Bernardes. He was responsible for a distinguished body of work that has sometimes been overshadowed by that of his father. His first important works were the signed panels representing scenes from the Life of the Virgin and the Infancy of Christ (1720) in the chancel of the church of the Misericórdia, Viana do Castelo. The scenes showing the Acts of Mercy, in the nave, are probably a result of collaboration with António, to whom they have often been attributed. All these scenes have an expressive force created by his painstaking technique of shading with hatched brushstrokes, and they are monumental in conception, especially in the perspectival architectural setting. These characteristics mark all his work.

Policarpo’s independent work includes a Gloria (1730), surrounded by a complex perspectival composition that covers the nave and chancel of the church of S Lourenço, Almansil, near Faro; and scenes from the ...

(fl 1566–89).

Italian potter. He was born in Ascanio and worked in Faenza, initially with Virgiliotto Calamelli, from whose widow he bought the workshop in 1570. Bettisi made huge maiolica services, including one of several hundred pieces made for Albert V of Bavaria in 1576; there is a broad-rimmed bowl from this service in Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. His wares and those of his workshop are marked ‘Don Pino’....

French, 17th century, male.

Died 1686 (?).

Sculptor (terracotta).

He worked in Le Mans and his name appears in the archives from 1658 to 1686.

Soulgé-sur-Ouette (Church St-Médard): St Medard (third quarter of XVIIe century)

French, 17th century, male.

Active in La Flèche (Sarthe).

Born 1630; died 1696.

Sculptor (terracotta).

Nicolas Bouteiller was part of the second generation of terracotta sculptors in Le Mans and the surrounding region, which was a major centre for this type of production in the 17th century. In ...

Italian, 17th century, male.

Active in Naples during the second half of the 17th century.

Potter.

Germany pottery manufactory. In 1904 Emperor Willliam II founded an imperial pottery on his private estate near the East Prussian town of Cadinen (now the Polish town of Kadyny). The factory made imitations of classical and Renaissance pottery, and also produced original works by artists such as Adolf Amberg, Ludwig Manzel (...

[Virgilio]

(fl Faenza, 1531; d Faenza, c. 1570).

Italian potter. He was the son of Giovanni da Calamello, and there are plenty of documents relating to him, especially after 1540, when as a practising potter he went to sell his wares in Bologna. He was so successful that citizenship was conferred on him. In Faenza his workshop was situated in the S Vitale quarter, where there were many other potteries during the 16th century. An inventory of 1556 (Grigioni, pp. 143–51) describes his economic position and the progress of his workshop. Apparently his was among the most well-established workshops in Faenza, able to produce huge table-services, including water jugs, salt-cellars, dishes and vases (e.g. vase with lion handles, c. 1550–60; Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus.). In 1566, for health reasons, he handed his shop over to Leonardo Bettisi, known as Don Pino, also from Faenza. Calamelli is recognized as an important exponent of the Compendiario (sketchy) style, which was typical of the so-called ...

Flemish School, 17th century, male.

Painter. Still-lifes.

Artus Claessens, active in Antwerp 1625-1644, does not seem to be the same man as the Artus Clayssens of Ghent.

London, 21 April 1993: Large Still-life with a Lobster, other Food and Various Dishes on a Table (...