UMBONATE BOWL, GUBBIO OR URBINO, 1530-1540 CIRCA in majolica decorated in cobalt blue with red and gilded lustre; on the back, at the centre of the foot, N and three spiral decorations along the rim in lustre; diam. cm 25,5, foot diam. cm 12,2, h. cm 5,4. cm 5,4 AN UMBONATE BOWL, GUBBIO OR URBINO, CIRCA 1530-1540 Comparative bibliography J. Giacomotti, Catalogue des majoliques des musées nationaux, Paris 1974, p. 222 n. 725; B. Rackham, Victoria and Albert Museum. Catalogue of Italian Maiolica, London 1977, p. 223 n. 704, table 110; T. Wilson, E. Sani, Le maioliche rinascimentali nelle collezioni della Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia. 1, Perugia 2006, pp 184-193 nos. 59-63 The bowl on a low foot has a moulded body and a relief decoration running along the rim, alternating oval pods with lanceolate leaves surmounted by small spherical fruits. The motif is painted with gilded red lustre and underlined with shadows rendered in broad cobalt blue brushstrokes. In the centre of the umbo, framed by a thin band of relief, is painted an amatory motif with a burning heart on a blazing fire, pierced by a dart and a sword and surmounted by two weeping eyes. On the back, there are three wide spirals in red lustre and in the centre an N in gilded lustre. This bowl belongs to a ceramic type in which the preciousness of the artefact was not given by the pictorial style, but by the lustre technique and the morphological realisation of the moulded object, which made it particularly fragile. The production of these objects, given the demand for pottery imitating metal and the success of the Gubbio lustres first and the Deruta lustres shortly afterwards, was widespread during the 16th century, but dated examples help to delimit the chronological span: one example bears the insignia of Julius II, Pope in the first decade of the century (1503-1513), another bears the insignia of Pope Paul III (1534-1549). The known exemplars with the mark N on the back are attributed by some to the workshop of Vincenzo Andreoli from Urbino, active in the years after 1538 and up to 1547. A cup in relief with the same representation in the centre is conserved in the collection of the Fondazione della Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia and bears the date 1531, one is conserved at the Victoria and Albert, one, very close also in the decoration of the brim, at the Musee de la Renaissance in Ecuen and another particularly close to ours, datable to 1530, appears in the Nicolier collection in Paris.