Introduction

Maiolica Technique

The Works of Art

Dish, The Judgment of Paris


Large Oval Dish, with scenes from Amadis of Gaul


Basin (wine cooler), Battle with Elephants


Snake-Handled Vase, with scenes from Amadis of Gaul


Pair of Vases, Biblical Scenes from the Old Testament

Exuberant Grotesques: Renaissance Maiolica from the Fontana Workshop
September 15, 2009, through January 17, 2010

Snake-Handled Vase, with scenes from Amadis of Gaul
Urbino or Turin, c. 1560–70 probably the workshop of Orazio Fontana
Philadelphia Museum of Art. Purchased with the Bloomfield Moore Fund and with other museum funds in 1944

This vase belongs to the service illustrated with scenes from the epic romance Amadis of Gaul. It is painted with two scenes from the five-volume epic written in the late fifteenth century by the Spanish poet Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo (died 1505). The nocturnal scene (below) depicts Amadis pursuing a knight who has kidnapped a young lady. The scene on the back portrays Amadis and Galaor interrupted in their fight by a knight, who informs them that, rather than being enemies, they are in fact brothers.