Description:
Tin glazed earthenware dish, thrown, made in Montelupo, Italy, circular dish, with dished center, flattened rim and curved under edge; the front surface is decorated with the decoration of a commedia dell'arte player called Zanni, he is depicted holding a striped banner, he wears a dark purple hat and a black masque, and is dressed in a blue jacket with green sleeves, he is also wearing striped trousers in blue, yellow, and purple, he strides across the dish and stands on a small hill with mountains? in the background with a yellow sky, there is white tin glaze on the back of the dish (it is also slightly greenish in areas) with three concentric circles of manganese purple decoration, no footrim, Condition: there are numerous losses to the glaze on the rim of the dish, and there is a hairline crack at 12 o'clock and 9 o'clock on the dish that have been secured. These brightly colored tin glazed earthenware dishes were exported from Montelupo, Italy to many different countries including England, the Philippines, Scotland, and British North America. In Jamestown, Virginia, similar examples to this Montelupo dish with commedia dell'arte decoration have been discovered. Accordinfg to Beverly Straube in her Ceramics in America 2001 article: "The commedia was an improvisational theater that developed in sixteenth-century Tuscany, but rapidly spread through Europe. Popular into the eighteenth century, it incorporated mime, gymnastics, and both scripted and unscripted dialogue. The commedia dell’arte performances would take place on outdoor stages, where they were accessible to the common people, as well as in the traditional theatres. Each actor in the traveling troupe would play the same role from among several stock characters, and although the actor was following a largely improvised script of one of several standard scenarios, there would be immediate audience recognition of the character from the costume and mannerisms. A commedia dell’arte Montelupo dish was excavated from a circa 1635 to 1645 site adjacent to Jamestown Island, believed to have been inhabited by indentured servants. The dish is decorated with a masked, bearded man wearing a black beret and holding a black cape in one hand while wielding what appears to be a dagger in the other. This masked figure is one of the comic servants, or Zanni, who were among the central characters around which most of the plot focused. “At the heart of early commedia dell’arte plots,” explains one scholar, “lies the interplay between the masked duo of the servant Zanni and his master, Magnifico.” There are many variants of the Zanni costume, some worn by actors who portrayed the comic servant under a personalized stage name. These differences have not been sufficiently documented to enable positive identification of this particular Zanni, although his costume is compatible with a circa 1630 date. Since the commedia dell’arte performances had reached England by the seventeenth century, it is almost certain that the owners of the dish in Virginia were aware of the identity and significance of the depicted character. Although a rare find in Virginia, the dish would not have been a high status object in England. Its rustic style of painting is very much in the folk tradition like the English slipwares that were produced primarily for the poor to “middling” classes. Even so, the dish was probably a one-of-a-kind vessel in the household of Virginia servants and intended for display rather than use." At this time no examples of the commedia dell'arte plates from Montelupo have been excavated in New England - but less elaborate dishes have been found. Recently (November 2017) examples of Montelupo ceramics have been excavated in Wethersfield, CT.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2017.9.2 |
