In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, potters from the Italian village of Castelli d'Abruzzo created wares that constitute a final, supremely pictorial phase of the tin-glazed earthenware art known as maiolica. Numerous pieces finely painted with narrative scenes came out of the workshops of the Grue and the Gentili, the two families of ceramists who dominated this era.

In 1988 the Getty Research Institute acquired the Gentili/Barnabei archive, which comprises 276 documents dating primarily to this remarkable period in the production of maiolica. Among the written materials are various Gentili family papers—letters, property transactions, marriage contracts, prayer books, and poems—as well as records pertaining to the manufacture of ceramics, such as orders for wares, lists of ingredients, and registers of pieces made and sold. Approximately 150 engravings, drawings, and pricked cartoons make up the balance of the archive. Most of these were used in some manner for the decoration of pottery, and they include four of the oldest substitute cartoons for ceramic painting known to be in existence.

In Maiolica in the Making, Catherine Hess documents this fascinating archive and discusses known ceramics related to its cartoons and engravings. She also shows how this rare collection illuminates the early use of transfer patterns and design sources in the maiolica workshops of Italy.

Catherine Hess is the former associate curator of sculpture and works of art at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She is the coauthor of European Glass in the J. Paul Getty Museum and Looking at European Ceramics.

Series: Bibliographies & Dossiers

Price: $45.00