|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 
The Golden Age of Italian Majolica The Hermitage has a first class collection of Italian majolica dating from the Renaissance. This collection is comparable with the best collections of Europe and was formerly never exhibited outside the museum to any large extent. The exhibition of 15th - 16th century Italian ceramics from the Hermitage collection that was exhibited in the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy from 7 June 2003 to 10 January 2004 featured 125 superb 16th century works, dating from the high point of Italian majolica production. The Milan publishers Mondadori Electa issued a catalog in Italian, English and Russian language editions in time for the opening of the exhibition. This is a splendidly illustrated scholarly work on majolica that was compiled by a senior researcher of the Department of Western European Art, E.N. Ivanova, who holds a doctoral degree in art history. The exhibit items included in the catalog illustrate the basic phases in the development and the centers of ceramic production of Renaissance Italy. In this period the majolica workshops of Sienna, Deruta, Casteldurante, Urbino, Gubbio, and Venice created diverse and original ceramics with virtuoso painted decoration. The author examines majolica in relation to the achievements of high art of the Renaissance - painting, sculpture and architecture. The most important painters of the age, including Raphael, Pinturicchio, Michelangelo, Eneo Vicco, and Parmigianino exerted a huge influence on the painting of Italian majolica. The painters of majolica were acquainted with prints of major paintings by these artists. The catalog annotations demonstrate the parallels with many of the great works. The catalog presents works by the ceramic masters of Urbino who hand decorated their works with istoriati on ancient and biblical subjects. Among these are masterpieces by very great artists such as the harmonious and sophisticated Nicola da Urbino and the true Renaissance artist Francesco Xanto Avelli, who was unusual in the breadth and diversity of his interests. The catalog also presents rare early majolica objects from Sienna, dating back to the start of the 16th century, and ceramics coated with a golden luster coming from Deruta and Gubbio. Moreover, we see here works by the very interesting Deruta artist Giacomo Mancini, known as El Frate, and the major master from Gubbio, Giorgio Andreoli. The catalog also describes the majolica of Faenza with its refined, somewhat archaic painting. An introductory article by E.N. Ivanova devoted to Italian majolica of the 15th to 16th centuries precedes the strictly catalog part of the publication. An article by corresponding member of the Russian Academy of arts, doctor of art history N.Yu. Biriukova provides a history of the Hermitage's collection of Italian majolica. The Hermitage collection was assembled in the 19th and early 20th centuries thanks to the 1885 purchase by the museum of the very rich collection of medieval and Renaissance applied art which belonged to A. P. Bazilevsky, and then by the acquisition in the 1920's of the collections of M.P. Botkin and Countess K. V. Shuvalova, plus the collections which belonged to A.S. Dolgorukov and F.I. Paskevich. In 1925 the Hermitage received part of the collection of the Museum of the former Central School of Technical Drawing that was founded by Baron Stieglitz. The catalog also includes an article by one of the leading Italian specialists in the field of ceramics, Carmen Ravanelli Guidoti. |
|
|||||
|
Copyright © 2011 State Hermitage Museum |
