frieze

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Object Type
Museum number: AF.3322
Description: Section of a frieze, consisting of a cherub-head in relief amid scrolling foliage with cornucopias and birds. Plain white border top and bottom. Relief parts are painted white, the ground a mauvish-blue. The section consists of two parts. Back is hollowed-out. Set in a black-painted wooden frame.
Producer name: Workshop of: Luca della Robbia (?); Made by: Santi Buglioni (?; perhaps)
Production date: 1520-1530 (circa)
Production place: Made in: Florence (city)
Materials
Ware
Technique: tin-glazed (front); relief; painted
Dimensions: Height: 36.30 centimetres; Length: 56.10 centimetres
Curator's comments: The frieze may date from c. 1520 Bibliography: Marquand 1920 p.25. Similar tile perhaps from same frieze with head and grotesques Sotheby's 9 December 1976 lot 49 as related to this one
Bibliographic references: Thornton & Wilson 2009 / Italian Renaissance Ceramics: a catalogue of the British Museum collection (cat. 139); Marryat 1857 / Collections towards a history of pottery and porcelain (p17); Dawson 1997 / Franks and European Ceramics, Glass and Enamels (pl. 24)
Location: Not on display
Subjects: cherub/cupid; plant; leaf
Acquisition name
Acquisition date: 1897
Acquisition notes: Possibly the 'two compartments of a FRIEZE in white on a blue ground, probably intended for exterior decoration...remarkable from the fact that they consist solely of arabesque ornaments instead of figures' shown by Mr George Isaacs in the Exh. of Ancient of Ancient and Medieval Art organised by the Society of Arts, cat. 535.
Department: Britain, Europe and Prehistory
Registration number: AF.3322
Conservation

Free entry

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