Pietà
Patanazzi Workshop
Date: 1580 - 1600
Place Made: Italy
Materials & Techniques: Painted tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica)
Dimensions: 38 cm x 43 cm x 32 cm
Accession Number: The Holburne Museum, J 250
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This is probably an elaborate writing stand, as well as an image to help its owner to think about the meaning of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
It is made of earthenware pottery covered with a glaze mixed with tin and painted in high temperature colours.
How was it made?
1. A modeller looked at a painting or print of the ‘deposition’ or ‘taking down’ of Christ from the cross and designed the way the group would look, either by sketching or by making a rough ‘modello’ in clay.
2. The individual pieces like the figures were made separately from earthenware clay, sticking separate bits together with ‘slip’, the same clay thinned down with water.
3. All the pieces were assembled onto a flat piece of clay, previously rolled out, and stuck together with slip. The base was made in the same way.
At this stage there were four pieces, the figure group, the base and the two drawers which slide into the base.
4. All the pieces were ‘biscuit-fired’ to a low temperature to set them.
5. Each separate section was quickly dipped in a bath of ‘tin-glaze’, a liquid mixture of glaze (to make a shiny covering to protect it) and tin ash or ‘oxide’ (to make the glaze opaque or solid and white).
6. Each section was painted in a limited range of colours which would withstand the high temperature of the final firing: all are oxides of metals. The glazed surface was very porous and difficult to paint on.
7. The pieces were fired to a temperature of about 1060˚C, fusing the colours into the glaze. If there was grease on the piece the glaze did not stick to it, this was known as ‘crawling’.
It was almost certainly made at the famous workshop of the Patanazzi family in the North Italian city of Urbino, in Umbria.
Teachers' Information
This is an object typical of ceramic production before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, an individual, expressive art-work which is the product of several craftsmen in a workshop with a distinctive style. Its techniques were in use throughout Europe in some form, since tin-glaze was taking root during the 17th century, but each country used its own visual language or style. This sculptural form of expression based on a painted composition is typical of the Italian tin-glaze ‘language’, and is an ideal vehicle to express the rich, dramatic art used by the Roman Catholic Church to counter the threat of the 16th century Reformation. Tin-glaze is a wonderfully expressive medium, not held back by its limited range of colours, and allows great scope for individual expression.
Activities
1. Which part of the process do your pupils think would be most fun to do? Which would take the longest time?
2. Would it be easy to damage this inkstand? How can your pupils tell that it is fragile?
3. What are the practical difficulties in making figures in clay?
4. Pupils could work in groups of four or five to create their own inkstand to express an event that has affected them in the past year. Do a rough drawing, thinking about symbols and colour. Use card to make a ‘stage-set’ interpretation of the design, each person working on a different element, one on putting it all together. Each group could display and explain its piece to the rest of class.
5. The colours used in decorating this type of earthenware are very limited. Ask your pupils to create a picture using the same colours as were used on this piece. What problems do they encounter? How effective is the finished work?