About the Artwork
This lavishly decorated ewer (brocca) is among the largest and most ambitious of the 59 known surviving pieces of so-called Medici porcelain, which was the first successfully produced porcelain anywhere in Europe. Previously Europeans had been attempting, without success, to replicate the delicate translucency of Chinese porcelain, since exported wares began to make their way into European court collections earlier in the sixteenth century. Grand-Duke Francesco I de’ Medici of Tuscany and his wife, Giovanna of Austria, whose coats of arms appear on this vase, were patrons of the first of these groundbreaking experiments at the Medici Manufactory in Florence. The armorials date the ewer between 1575, the year of the earliest documented European porcelain, and 1578, the year of Giovanna’s death in childbirth. The magnificently sculptural winged masks on the handles warrant an attribution of the overall design to Bernardo Buontalenti (ca. 1531 – 1608), head of the Medici workshops and a talented designer. The ewer had been in the Rothschild family collections in Paris for over 150 years before the museum acquired it.
Ewer (brocca)
between 1575 and 1578
Medici Manufactory
active 1575 - 1587
Italian
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Soft paste porcelain with blue underglaze and manganese decoration
Overall: 14 1/2 inches × 9 inches (36.8 × 22.9 cm)
Ceramics
European Sculpture and Dec Arts
Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, New Endowment Fund, Henry Ford II Fund, Benson and Edith Ford Fund, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Buhl Ford II Fund, Mr. and Mrs. Horace E. Dodge Memorial Fund, Josephine and Ernest Kanzler Fund; gifts from Mrs. Horace E. Dodge, Mrs. Russell A. Alger, Mr. and Mrs. Edgar B. Whitcomb, Robert H. Tannahill, Julie E. Peck, Ralph Harman Booth, Mrs. Alvin Macauley, Sr., Albert Kahn, Mr. and Mrs. Trent McMath, K.T. Keller, Mrs. Edsel B. Ford, Arnold Seligman, William Buck and Mary Chase Stratton, Mrs. Sydney D. Waldon, Mr. and Mrs. William E. Scripps, Ernest and Josephine Kanzler, Dr. and Mrs. Reginald Harnett, Elizabeth Parke Firestone, and City of Detroit by exchange
2000.85
Public Domain
Markings
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Provenance
Made for Franceso I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and his wife, Johanna of Austria, between 1575 and 1578;by descent, Gian Gastone de' Medici (died 1737), the last Grand Duke of Tuscany, in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence;
included in the auction on 1772 of European and Asian ceramics from the Medici collection held at the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence;
Baron Gustave de Rothschild, Paris (1829-1911), by 1859;
by descent, Baron Robert de Rothschild, (1880-1946) Paris;
by descent, Baron Elie de Rothschild (born 1917), Paris;
acquired from the Rothschild family through Adrian Sassoon (dealer), London.
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Florence. Guardaroba Medicea, 1301 bis, fol. 175r, dated 1691.
Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Florence. Guardaroba Medicea, 1326, fol. 376r, dated 1721.
Jacquemart, A. “La Porcelaine des Medicis.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts no. 3/4 (July-December 1859): p. 284.
Darcel, H. “Les faiences francaises et les porcelaines au Trocadero.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 18 (November 1878): p. 762.
Garnier, E. La Porcelaine tendre de Sevres. Paris, n.d. (1889?), (fig. 1).
Liverani, G. Catalogo delle porcellane dei Medici. Faenza, 1936, pp. 18-19, no. 9.
Liverani, G. "Premières porcelaines européennes: les essais des Médicis". Cahiers De La Céramique Et Des Arts Du Feu: Revue Trimestrielle. 1959: 141-158.
Cooper, D. Great Private Collections. London, 1965, p. 175.
Cora, G. and A. Fanfani. La porcellana dei Medici. Milan, 1986, p. 23; pp. 98-99.
Gonzales-Palacios, A. Il tempio del gusto: Le arti decorative in Italia fra classicismi e barocco. Milan, 1986, p. 214, fig. 409.
Spallanzani, M. Ceramiche alla Corte dei Medici nel Cinquecento. Modena, 1994, p. 71, (pl. 26).
Darr, A., P. Barnet, A. Bostrom, with contributions by C. Avery, et al. Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Detroit Institute of Arts, vol. 1. London, 2002, cat. 106.
Darr, A. "Francesco I de' Medici, Bernardo Buontalenti and a Medici Porcelain Ewer in Detroit." In Arte Collezionismo Convervazione: Scritti In Onore Di Marco Chiarini. Florence, 2004, pp. 219-224.
Darr, A. and B. Gallagher. "Recent acquisitions (2000-2006) of European sculpture and decorative arts at The Detroit Institute of Arts.” The Burlington Magazine 149 (June 2007): p. 449, (pl. 1) (ill.).
Bulletin of the DIA 87, no. 1/4 (2013): cat. no. 37.
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Medici Manufactory, Ewer (brocca), between 1575 and 1578, soft paste porcelain with blue underglaze and manganese decoration. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, New Endowment Fund, et al., 2000.85.
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