Maiolica bowl, painted with St Jerome in the Wilderness

An image of Maiolica Bowl. St Jerome in the Wilderness. Unknown potter, Umbria, Deruta. Shape 76. Circular with curved sides, standing on a low footring, pierced by a hole incorrectly placed for suspension the right way up. The Saint kneels facing towards the right, holding a crucifix in his left hand and a stone in his right. A lion crouches on his left and a cardinal's hat and tassels lie on the ground to his right. In the background on either side there is a plant. Light greyish-buff earthenware. Moulded with the design in relief, and tin-glazed overall; unevenly and thinly on the reverse. Painted in blue, yellow, and brownish-orange, height, whole, 4.4 cm, diameter, whole, 15.2 cm, circa 1575-1625. Renaissance. Notes(s): St Jerome was a common subject on lustred maiolica in the first half of the sixteenth century. St Jerome (c. 341-420) was one of the four Latin fathers of the early Church, whose greatest achievement was the production of a Latin text of the Bible, later known as the Vulgate. On this bowl, as on most Deruta and Gubbio lustreware, he is shown as a hermit, kneeling in penitence in the Syrian desert where he spent five years before he was ordained. The lion became his companion after he had taken a thorn from its paw, much later in his life when he was a monk at Bethlehem. This bowl is painted in the compendiario style, which was adopted in Deruta during the last third of the sixteenth century and continued for much of the seventeenth.

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Maiolica Bowl. St Jerome in the Wilderness. Unknown potter, Umbria, Deruta. Shape 76. Circular with curved sides, standing on a low footring, pierced by a hole incorrectly placed for suspension the right way up. The Saint kneels facing towards the right, holding a crucifix in his left hand and a stone in his right. A lion crouches on his left and a cardinal's hat and tassels lie on the ground to his right. In the background on either side there is a plant. Light greyish-buff earthenware. Moulded with the design in relief, and tin-glazed overall; unevenly and thinly on the reverse. Painted in blue, yellow, and brownish-orange, height, whole, 4.4 cm, diameter, whole, 15.2 cm, circa 1575-1625. Renaissance. Notes(s): St Jerome was a common subject on lustred maiolica in the first half of the sixteenth century. St Jerome (c. 341-420) was one of the four Latin fathers of the early Church, whose greatest achievement was the production of a Latin text of the Bible, later known as the Vulgate. On this bowl, as on most Deruta and Gubbio lustreware, he is shown as a hermit, kneeling in penitence in the Syrian desert where he spent five years before he was ordained. The lion became his companion after he had taken a thorn from its paw, much later in his life when he was a monk at Bethlehem. This bowl is painted in the compendiario style, which was adopted in Deruta during the last third of the sixteenth century and continued for much of the seventeenth.

Image data

Accession Number: C.2196-1928
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/19.0
Focal length: 120
Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
Photographer name: Katie Young
Image height: 792 pixels
Image width: 1024 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.4 (Windows)
Filesize: 503.90kB
Exposure time: 1/15
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 19/1

Key words

16th Century 17th Century animal bare chested bearded beards bowl Christianity church fathers churches circular cross crucifix crucifixion Deruta earthenware Easter eremitic Fitz_AA halo hermetical hermit Italian kneeling Late Renaissance lions maiolica male moulded Other Keywords painted passion Passion of Christ penitence penitent penitential pottery relief religion religious Renaissance round Saint Jerome St Jerome torso Umbrian School wilderness

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            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024)
            "Maiolica bowl, painted with St Jerome in the Wilderness"
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            |title=Maiolica bowl, painted with St Jerome in the Wilderness
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            University of Cambridge}}

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