Object of the Day, Museum Edition: The Fontana Inkstand, c. 1550

Inkstand
Fontana Workshop, c. 1550
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Made in the mid-Sixteenth Century, this tin-glazed earthenware inkstand comes from the Fontana Workshop in Urbino, Italy. The inkstand is surmounted by a figure of a young man playing an organ. He is joined by his faithful spaniel who is getting his ear scratched by his master. An inkstand such as this would have been made to appeal to a young gentleman for use in his private study. During this era, a class of urban professional men was developing and many workshops created specialized items to appeal to them. Desk accessories and ink stands were the centerpieces of these collections. Very often, these stands were fitted with compartments for pen, pounce, a paper knife, and scissors. This example once had a sliding drawer which is now missing. 


The scene depicted here shows a fashionable young gentleman dressed in the “uniform” of a nobleman. He sits at an architecturally-designed organ which is being operated by a boy at the reverse operating bellows. The entire group rests on a rectangular stand supported by lion's paws at the corners. At one point in the last five hundred years, the stand was broken, and, then, restored. There’s evidence of restoration to the chair, the brim of the hat, one of the capitals of the organ’s pilasters and the boy’s toes and bellows. 

To Serve and Project: A Minton Tureen, 1866

Click image for all the dead-rabbity goodness.
Minton Stew Tureen
England, 1866
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Who doesn’t want a bas relief dead rabbit on their soup tureen? Well, maybe I don’t. But, even though this Minton tureen from 1866 is adorned with the corpses of game, it’s still rather attractive.

This dish, cover and its liner feature a handsomely molded, and rather realistic, group of game, oak leaves, ferns, and a crow arranged in a representation of a wicker basket. Glazed in deep greens and browns, the piece is afforded additional realism from the majolica glazes. Clearly, the tureen was made to serve some sort of disturbing game stew. It’s the sort of thing that when brought to the table, the diners would be able to look at it and know that they were about to get a tasty, hot, wet dinner of rabbit and duckies. This was a favorite thing to do for Victorian designers who thought it amusing to represent the function of an object in its decoration.

The tureen is the work of Léon Arnoux (1816-1902), the art director at the Minton Ceramic Factory of Stoke-on-Trent, England. Amoux had a preoccupation with Renaissance pottery and Sixteenth-century tin-glazed painted Italian maiolica and based his work on these past designs. In 1849, this interest led to the debut of “Palissy Ware” based on the designs of Bernard Palissy and with a nod to the Italian Renaissance style. Later, by the 1880s, these Nineteenth Century recreations became known as “majolica ware”—a term which sticks to this day in regard to all such wares whether made by Minton or not.

The reverse of the liner is marked: “Minton 86 8” and displays a date symbol for 1866.

Figure of the Day: A Donkey Stealing Carrots, c. 1925

A Donkey Stealing Carrots
Stella R. Crofts, 1925-1930
The Victoria & Albert Museum

When I first began writing about this earthenware figure from about 1925, I misread the title from the listing in the V&A and was under the mistaken impression that the piece was called, “A Donkey Selling Carrots.” This caused me to wonder why and how an ass would sell carrots. Wouldn’t a mule be more inclined to eat carrots, to take them? Well, yes. As it turns out, the name of this “maiolica”-glazed piece is actually “A Donkey Stealing Carrots.” This makes considerably more sense. 


Made in Ilford, England between 1925 and 1930, the figure depicts a boy on a donkey who is in the process of stealing carrots. This is the work of Stella R. Crofts. A version of this figure was shown in the Government Pavilion of the Paris 1925 Exhibition. The model design was later sold by Crofts to Worcester in 1931, who reproduced the group under the considerably less interesting title “Boy with Donkey.”

Object of the Day, Museum Edition: The Fontana Inkstand, c. 1550

Inkstand
Fontana Workshop, c. 1550
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Made in the mid-Sixteenth Century, this tin-glazed earthenware inkstand comes from the Fontana Workshop in Urbino, Italy. The inkstand is surmounted by a figure of a young man playing an organ. He is joined by his faithful spaniel who is getting his ear scratched by his master. An inkstand such as this would have been made to appeal to a young gentleman for use in his private study. During this era, a class of urban professional men was developing and many workshops created specialized items to appeal to them. Desk accessories and ink stands were the centerpieces of these collections. Very often, these stands were fitted with compartments for pen, pounce, a paper knife, and scissors. This example once had a sliding drawer which is now missing. 


The scene depicted here shows a fashionable young gentleman dressed in the “uniform” of a nobleman. He sits at an architecturally-designed organ which is being operated by a boy at the reverse operating bellows. The entire group rests on a rectangular stand supported by lion's paws at the corners. At one point in the last five hundred years, the stand was broken, and, then, restored. There’s evidence of restoration to the chair, the brim of the hat, one of the capitals of the organ’s pilasters and the boy’s toes and bellows.