The Seventeenth Century

Slight Decline in the Ceramics Taste and Areas

 Deruta majolica does not appear to have undergone a decline in terms of quantity in the 17th century and favored as it was by its privileged relations with sanctuaries of international importance such as San Francesco in Assisi and San Pietro in Perugia,  and by its now well-established reputation, the Deruta potters produced enormous quantities of earthenware, ranging from the humbler production for kitchen use, to that decorated with the motifs currently fashionable. However although reduction is not affected from the point of view of quantity, it does show a substantial modification as regards taste and the social destination of the articles. There is still a demand for refined artifacts, but a production intended primarily for markets and fairs prevails.

The shapes become more fluid with bean motifs and plastic applications, and salt-cellars in the shape of small caskets, buildings, dragons and shells appears as do shoe-shaped inkstands, and "drink if you can" vessels and leaf-shaped whistles. Polychrome production takes precedence over lustreware, and in its output of ordinary earthenware, the Deruta ceramists adhere enthusiastically to the most common decorative types of the age: the compendious style, originating from Faenza, and the Raphaelesque from Urbino. Both were interpreted by the Deruta potters with ironic and light brushstrokes, which, in brown or blue, highlight anatomical details with caricature-like insistence, giving rise to a rapid, ironic and popular style.

The palette is enriched with a bright green unlikely to be found elsewhere. The great courtly and mythological subjects of the previous century are reinterpreted in a lively narrative vein and the celebrated Raphaelesque motif destined to play a role of the utmost importance in the twentieth century Deruta production, is expressed within irony totally lacking in other centers. This type,which appears to originate from Urbino, consists of an elaboration on a white background of the grotesque motif from the school of Raphael. In Deruta it is widespread around the mid-17th century.

Another decoration which, as mentioned above, is usually found in Deruta’s seventeenth century production, is the compendious style, as demonstrated by two plaques with a religious subject dating back to the end of the 16th century and a series of votive tiles to be attributed to the second half of the century; preserved in the church of the Madonna dei Bagni. The style of the epoch is manifested in the even sketchier and more concise strokes of the depictions, executed with almost caricatural intent.

Important differences in terms of quality are not in fact found between the ex-voto offerings and the contemporary majolica tableware. The figures on the tiles, so ingenuous and homely are the same which people the elegant pieces in the compendious and Raphaelesque styles: deep basins, large, slightly flared plates, and footed dishes. The Madonna dei Bagni also appears, even if more rarely in association with a typical seventeenth- century decoration of oriental origin known as "calligraphic", with animals chasing one another through flowers and clumps of stylized vegetation, derived from the blue and white Chinese porcelain of the I/Wanlil/ period.

 It was imported to Europe by the Portuguese and the Dutch. Calligraphic decoration first became widespread at the beginning of the 17th century in Delftware and, owing to its close trading relations with Portugal and Holland, in the majolica of Liguria. The Deruta version, even though sometimes very close to that of Liguria, especially when it is in monochrome blue, is for the most part differentiated by the greater rapidity and vivacity of the brushstrokes.  Calligraphic decoration is mainly produced in monochrome blue, yellow, orange and green, but also appears in a two-color scheme, and on occasion surrounds a polychrome center.