Lower half of a square tile from the Palazzo Petrucci: C.129-1927

Titles

Lower half of a square tile from the Palazzo Petrucci

Maker(s)

Maker: Unidentified Siena pottery

Entities

• Tile fragment
• lower half of a square tile

Categories

• Tin-glazed earthenware
• Maiolica

Description

Cream earthenware, tin-glazed on the upper surface. Painted in dark blue, green, yellow, orange, brownish-red, and, on the border tile, black.
The lower half of a square tile is decorated with the lower part of a shield quartered with the arms of Piccolomini and Petrucci, and has a similar border with a mask in the spandrel.

Notes

History note: Purportedly purchased in Siena by F. Leverton Harris.

Legal notes

F. Leverton Harris Bequest, 1926

Place(s) associated

• Siena ⪼ Tuscany ⪼ Italy

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1926) by Harris, F. Leverton, The Right Hon.

Dating

16th Century
Renaissance
Production date: circa AD 1509

Note

This fragment fromed part of a tile pavement commissioned by Pandolfo Petrucci for the principal room in his palazzo in Siena. The room is thought to have been decorated between 1508 and Petrucci's death in 1512, and three of the tiles are dated 1509. The pavement comprises pentagonal tiles of two sizes, square tiles, and rectangular border tiles. Some of the square tiles are decorated with the quartered arms of Piccolomini and Petrucci, with trophies, or with figures in landscapes reminiscent of those by Pinturricchio, Signorell, and Genga. The majority are decorated with grotesques, and the pavement is one of the most outstanding illustrations of this genre on early sixteenth-century maiolica. Over 300 tiles from the pavement are in the Victoria & Albert Museum, and there are seventeen in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg. A number of others were listed by Rasmussen in his catalogue of that collection.