Pilgrim Flask

Getty Museum

Pilgrim Flask

Medici Porcelain Factory

Object Description · Getty Museum

This pilgrim flask, one of the rare porcelains produced in the Medici factory, is an example of the earliest porcelain made in Europe. By the late 1500s, maiolica wares had begun to decline in popularity among the affluent. In its place, soft-paste porcelain was invented, to satisfy consumers' demand for novelty and increasing passion for true porcelain from China. An exceptionally beautiful piece, the Getty Museum's flask is one of only about sixty remaining Medici porcelain pieces. It displays the finest qualities of the factory's production, including a translucent white body decorated with clear designs in underglaze blue. Flasks of this kind were fashioned after vessels used by pilgrims and travelers to carry drinking water. This piece would have served simply for display as the applied side loops, in the form of grotesque masks, would never have suspended the vessel from a pilgrim's shoulder. The arabesque patterns and stylized floral decoration--including rose, carnation, tulip, and palmette motifs--imitate Chinese porcelain as well as Turkish ceramic wares from around 1500.

Getty Museum’s catalogue record

produced_by.carried_out_by[0].id
https://data.getty.edu/museum/collection/group/4c8db7f4-4919-4d02-acf7-294c17e6d117
Artist/Maker
Medici Porcelain Factory
subject_of[Homepage].id
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RR6
Date
1580s
Medium
Soft-paste porcelain, underglaze blue decoration
Culture
Italian
Object Type
Flask

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Getty Museum’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

View at Getty Museum ↗

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata. The fields above are the museum’s, under its own labels. LinkedCulture’s derived fields are listed separately below and marked as ours.

Get printable QR codes

Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.

Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.3E_FVZC12gjV4_9j.vwoe3STXwJn5POblpRpLsclTJghUrnaIEKHxaLkqUDxuy14FY3AMPOD3by7BzCpVNM8p6SfcYzWVP1ZafE-qILPCOjRPFJG1qOsram91_Eb9IWubVrL_LT7sbbVjUxiwFE6sNJ2Ep3weqaa1qRdmmW66WabJf1-rXekwQImn1NlbvE7KUwIbkxPMyFSvjpmpmhss0ZD4jzELUo9kU355_FyG1awVLD4pMle9hIgSBolWk_zzXl8GI-8SukLV8K4yPQa1x_GYlfqwtwWHDMdpaf3vA65amP1O3rUhnEfnMOy5Ys4TJEb9kBq7IQZlug_FhwOLm5oqj3qh53XZntTQuzJtlMQGxxs6F6QmMBgcSzcJBr8_ljFoRiXrrFL1gwLfgoLLF4xMvHqnO-ATc4csSee at Getty Museum QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.7T2gP-bNkWUhITtr.W8oc3LkLfez6Dm-L94XFfJmllJLI7q4r8tXx74NpTAxXnMNOmmfzMEP3YO7zR714fZ-CY9gAX48-9PwarAKwV2hgSKN5JPp0kVQBEYi4ugU72f2WdSjEg-I-zpcZBbhbqnLAGMTAZqehxTxzBD5JUUqhJiKrQ6mhsvd3OngBic3WACajuj65ykQum43UKG1ybl7qlLX-tgnSwlvnoopPn0gBWzIcxm81IWy_Ir0rmi1RSCM9A_GS_uGUfQrfK-cz7s5XbHW0X6j-5NOpQEoz21xiL4kmHqJ1JCq3nlJO-L3fMDQiA2ucHH_0ktvdvADbaAmVDzDreUy_v5f_X1U0sJXHBJhCl4j30PmBQKnOTRKhpeFjfKrfl7hrTjs
Open this page
See at Getty Museum
How LinkedCulture maps this record

To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Getty Museum’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
66f44f93-1ab0-40cd-a0d8-25e9b73ae79e
Object Type
Flask
  • Getty Museum field “Object Type” · copied as is
Creator
Medici Porcelain Factory
  • Getty Museum field “Artist/Maker” · copied as is
Culture
Italian
  • Getty Museum field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
Soft-paste porcelain, underglaze blue decoration
  • Getty Museum field “Medium” · copied as is
Department
Decorative Arts
  • Getty Museum field “Department” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field · Getty's classification category is stored as department.
Credit Line
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
  • Getty Museum field “Standard Credit Line” · the first available of several museum fields
  • Getty Museum field “Source Credit Line” · the first available of several museum fields
Date
1580s
  • Getty Museum field “Date” · copied as is
Begin Year
1580
  • Getty Museum field “produced_by.timespan.begin_of_the_begin” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field
End Year
1589
  • Getty Museum field “produced_by.timespan.end_of_the_end” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

LinkedCulture video

Pilgrim Flask

Sep 16, 2026 · Short

YouTubeInstagram
Follow LinkedCultureYouTubeInstagramBluesky
Museum record

Related across collections

Semantically similar works from Getty Museum and other institutions.