BIANSATO JAR, DERUTA, 16th CENTURY in majolica with lustre decoration; h. cm 28, diam. of mouth cm 18,1, diam. of foot cm 14,1 A TWO-HANDLED JAR, DERUTA, 16TH CENTURY Comparative Bibliography J.E.Poole, Italian maiolica in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1995, cat. 244; J. Giacomotti, Catalogue des majoliques des musées nationaux, Paris 1974, pp. 194-196 nn. 630-637; W. Watson, Italian RenaissanceCeramics from the Howard I. And Janet H. Stein Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia 2001 n. 34; C. Fiocco, G. Gherardi, L. Sfeir-Fakhri, Majoliquesitaliennes du Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Lyon. Collection Gillet, Toulouse 2015, no. 68 The vase has a flattened ovoid body resting on a high foot with a flared base and a wide mouth with a slatted rim. Just below the rim, two curved handles descend to join the body just above the point of maximum expansion. The decoration has, under the broad rim edged with lustre in the middle part, an ornament with two large metopes arranged symmetrically and divided by a foliate decoration, centred by an almond-shaped medallion containing a small half-length female portrait. Underneath there is a band decorated with rounded elements inserted between two parallel lines, resting on a decoration with oblique blobs that develops on the calyx of the vase. The decoration is made in cobalt blue on stanniferous glaze with golden yellow lustre decorations in the reserved portions. The form is very common in Deruta production of the 16th century, sometimes equipped with a cone-shaped lid with a button grip. Vases of this type were made of parts cold-assembled with soft clay to weld the foot to the body. Some scholars believe that these vases could have been combined with water basins, and this association with the basins would place this ceramic typology in the most important parade dishes and sideboards. These vases, specific to the production of the city of Deruta, were probably the work of several workshops, as numerous archival data from as early as 1496 would testify. Numerous examples are conserved in the public collections of major museums and in private collections, often characterised by diversified decorations, as is well demonstrated by the examples accompanying the vase in this same catalogue. See also the numerous exemplars published by Giacomotti in the list of French museums, and in particular the vase from the Louvre Museum with a floral motif on the body datable to the first third of the 16th century, the one, very close, from the Gillet collection in Lyon and finally the vase from the Philadephia Museum. Interesting for the production of these works is the list of comparisons preserved in international and Italian museums compiled by J.E. Poole