1985.50.422

Collection type

Object

Description

Maiolica glazed bowl painted on the inside in green, yellow and blue with a representation of the Virgin and child under a yellow arch. [FB 25/02/2014]

Long description

Maiolica glazed bowl painted on the inside in green, yellow and blue with a representation of the Virgin and child under a yellow arch. The inside of the bowl is inscribed with the words "CON POLVERE DI S CASA" in black paint. The outside of the bowl is painted with two blue stripes and a yellow band on the rim. The bowl has a couple of cracks down the sides. There is a seal on the base. [FB 25/02/2014]

Geographical reference

Italy

Europe > Southern Europe > Italy

Loreto

Cultural groups

Italian

Person

Field collector Walter Leo Hildburgh

PRM source Wellcome Institute

PRM source Wellcome Historical Medical Museum

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1914

Date collected

1914

Acquisition information

Loaned: 1985

Materials and processes

Material Pottery, Material Pigment, Material Wax, Process Maiolica Glazed, Process Inscribed, Process Thrown, Process Painted

Dimensions

Diameter: max 115 mm, Height: max 60 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1985.50.422

Research and responses

For background, see the section entitled 'Polvere della S. Mura della S. Casa di Loreto' in Il Feticismo primitivo in Italia e le sue forme di adattamento (Tradizioni popolari Italiane), by Guiseppe Bellucci (Perugia: Unione tipografrica cooperativa, 1907), pp. 135-38. [JC 29 9 2015]

This object was examined by Timothy Wilson (Research Keeper, Ashmolean Museum) on 17 September 2015. He noted that the dust mentioned on the PRM labels is likely to have been added to the clay before forming, rather than sold separately. [NC 29/09/2015]

Associated publications

Illustrated (with 1985.50.420, 1985.50.421, 1985.50.423, and 1985.50.424) in colour as Figure 100 on page 323 of Italian Maiolica and Europe: Medieval, Renaissance, and Later Italian Pottery in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, with Some Examples Illustrating the Spread of Tin-Glazed Pottery across Europe, by Timothy Wilson (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford, 2017). Caption (same page): 'Five pilgrim bowls from the Santa Casa. (c) Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1985.50.420-424.) The author discusses such bowls on pages 322-323: 'Bowls of this sort were made for pilgrims, incorporating dust gathered at the site / and water taken from the Santa Scodella. Examples have been variously attributed and some look likely to have been made in Castelli, but it seems logical to suppose that most were made not far from Loreto. Such bowls were sold in large quantities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and are not uncommon. Five in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, are illustrated here.' (Photocopy in RDF.) [JC 13 10 2017]

Search terms: Pottery, Writing, Figure, Religion, Vessel, Bowl, Inscription, Amulet