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Represented in three-quarter profile, this depiction of a young woman does not appear to have the idiosyncrasies of an actual portrait but is rather an idealized image of a “Belle Donne” (beautiful woman), a woman painted according to Renaissance ideals of female beauty. Behind her, a scroll is inscribed with the phrase, “Camilla Bella,” meaning “Beautiful Camilla.” This dish is characteristic of Renaissance “coppe amatorie” (love dishes), that often included an idealized picture of a woman with her name, followed by the word “bella” (beautiful). This dish may have been presented to a lady named Camilla, from her male admirer, or the woman and the inscription could allude to a literary figure, such as Camilla from the Roman poet Virgil’s (70-15 BCE) “Aeneid.” Dishes decorated with busts of beautiful women were extremely popular in the early sixteenth century, and were produced in great quantities in Deruta and Urbino. The back of this dish is painted bluish-white. For similar dishes, see 48.1351 and 48.1741; for more information on ‘maiolica’ in general, see 48.1336.
H: 1 3/4 × W: 9 1/2 in. (4.5 × 24.2 cm)
medium: earthenware with tin glaze (maiolica)
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Two facing birds painted with dark brown slip (clay diluted with water) on a plain white slip ground were a popular decoration in eastern Iran. A stylized Arabic word, baraka (blessing), appears on each bird’s body.
Iran, Nishapur or Central Asia, Samarkand, Samanid Period, 10th century
earthenware with underglaze slip-painted decoration
Overall: 7.6 x 25 cm (3 x 9 13/16 in.)
Gift of George P. Bickford
This manuscript was illuminated by a circle of at least five highly organized manuscript painters active in the Flemish cities of Ghent and Bruges. The principal illuminator was Alexander Bening, who painted the majority of the book's miniatures. Manuscripts produced by this circle of artists are renowned for the decoration of their borders, which typically feature a rich variety of realistically-painted flowers, birds, and butterflies. This prayer book, called a book of hours, was intended not for a cleric, but for the private devotions of a lay person-in this case, Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain (1451-1504). Isabella's coat of arms embellishes the book's frontispiece. It is unlikely that the book was commissioned by the Queen herself; rather, she probably received it as a diplomatic gift from someone courting her patronage, perhaps Cardinal Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros. A Franciscan friar, Jimenez was dependent upon Isabella for his advancement, first to the post of Queen's confessor in 1492, and then to Archbishop of Toledo in 1495.
Flanders, Ghent and Bruges, late 15th century
ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
Codex: 22.5 x 15.2 cm (8 7/8 x 6 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund
A vase like this was created to contain potpourri, a mixture of flowers, herbs, and spices emitting ambient fragrance. This specific function offered a particularly fertile ground for the development of French porcelain, as manufactories experimented with forms, surface ornamentations, and placement of perforations.
France, Saint Cloud, 18th century
soft-paste porcelain
Overall: 15 cm (5 7/8 in.)
Did you know...
Prior to Saint-Cloud's development of soft-paste porcelain in the 1690s, rumors spread throughout Europe that the prized material was made by burying a variety of materials, including lobster shells, in the ground for eighty years.
The Norweb Collection