Archaic majolica albarelli...?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

I've been looking into 15th Century Italian pharmacies over the last few 
days, and the barrels seem (to my eyes, anyway) to look a lot like what's 
called archaic majolica albarelli.

Majolica was a term used for (usually) tin-glazed earthenware, originally 
produced in Spain and imported into Italy via Majorca (hence "majolica"). 
However, it was later produced at a number of sites in Italy, most notably 
in an area north of Florence.

Alborelli were a type of container used for storing drugs, often made 
specifically for pharmacies.

At the start of the 15th century, majolica was fairly crude: kilns could 
only control manganese (blue) glazes, so decoration was limited to blue. 
Also: they were generally executed in a "severe style" - lots of geometric 
and schematic decoration, often based on Islamic designs. This is generally 
known as "archaic majolica".

But by the last few decades of the century, majolica started to become 
intensely decorated with historical scenes, in a style known as 
"istoriato", which subsequently peaked in 1530.

So: I think that we can confirm our dating for the VMS fairly well, purely 
on the basis of the "barrel" illustrations - they're pre-"istoriato", but 
they're not totally simple either. Based on this, my uneducated guess is 
1450-1480: but I've contacted the Majolica Society to see if one of their 
experts can date it much more definitively than this.

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

PS: IIRC, most pre-Renaissance earthenware was destroyed because of the 
belief that it could transmit disease (ie, plague etc), so actual examples 
are quite rare.