Faenza, dated 1520.

Bowl with wide rim. Depiction of a half-figure, holding a scroll with illegible writing, on a blue ground with light blue grotesques and tendrils heightened in white. Dated 1520 in blue on the reverse.

D 26 cm. Restoration.

Provenance: Important private collection of an Italian aristocrat.

“Belle Arti” export license available.

Of the large group of Berettino "bianco sopra azzuro" maiolica with few dated specimens, this is the earliest dated hitherto known example.
There is little stylistic development during the short production period between 1519 and 1537. The central medallions are always decorated with a half-figure, a myhthological scene or a coat of arms. It is assumed that these majolica pieces, already popular at the time, came from a one single Faenza workshop.

The figure of the man with beret is found again in a scene titled "Hermes Mercurius Trimegistus"in the stone mosaic floor in the Cathedral of Siena.
A comparable Berettino bowl, dated 1524, in T. Wilson, Ceramic Art of the Italian Renaissance, 1987, p. 79 no. 112 (MLA 1855, 12-1, 68); a collection of Berettino maiolica in the collection of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, see J. Rasmussen, Italienische Majolika, 1984,p. 89-96.