Getty Museum

Blue and White Dish with a Merchant Ship

Date

about 1510

Medium

Tin-glazed earthenware

Culture

Italian

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

The delicate stylized flower and leaf decoration of this plate is called *alla porcellana* (like porcelain) because it imitates blue and white Chinese porcelain, which was much sought after in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Italy. Because Western potters were unable to create true porcelain until much later, they tried to simulate it with earthenware. The arabesque-like foliage may also have been inspired by Turkish Isnik pottery of the period. The rim of the plate is decorated with four musical trophies: a harp with sheets of music, a lute with a scroll inscribed *MVSICA*, a reed pipe and wind blower, and an urn and dulcimer. In the center is a carrack, a broad-beamed merchant ship. The back of the plate is decorated with three curving leafy branches and marked in the center with words that are difficult to read: *J[acop]o chafagguolo* or *In chafagguolo*. They indicate that the dish was made in Cafaggiolo, the site of a Medici-sponsored maiolica workshop just outside Florence.

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.