Description:
One of two English delft square tiles in blue, yellow, and red with bianco-sopra-bianco borders. This tile has a parrot standing on a branch with a bianco-sopra-bianco pattern of scrolling leaves and flowers, which is attributed to Bristol. Recorded tiles with a bianco border have a variety of central motifs, including animals, flowers, chinoiserie scenes, and European landscapes. Bianco-sopra-bianco is decorative form where a painted design in a brilliant white pigment stands out against a tinted ground. Late fifteenth-century Italian potters first developed this technique, called 'bianchetto', but its revival in the eighteenth century is probably connected to decorated Chinese export porcelains. Underglaze carved decoration (known as 'an hua') and overglaze white enameling on Chinese porcelains directly inspired their imitation on delftwares. The bianco sopra bianco technique first appeared in Europe on Italian maiolica of the late 15th or early 16th century but it was not long lived and disappeared. The bianco technique was first revived at the Swedish factory of Rörstrand sometime before 1745, and seems likely that the decorative technique was brought to England by Magnus Lundberg, a Swedish potter who had worked at the Rörstrand factory. Lundberg eventually settled in Bristol around 1750 to become a pot-painter and master at the Richard Frank's Redcliff Back pottery.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+64.107A |
