A LARGE BOULBOUS JAR, VENICE, MASTRO DOMENICO AND COWORKERS, CIRCA 1560-1570 LARGE BOULBOUS JAR, VENICE, MASTRO DOMENICO AND COWORKERS, CIRCA 1560-1570 majolica painted in polychrome in blue, yellow, orange yellow, copper green in several shades, tin white, manganese in purple and black-brown; h. 38.4 cm, mouth diam. 17 cm, foot diam. 16.5 cm Provenience William Stirling Collection, Scotland; Christie's, London, 14 November 1977, lot 164; Paolo Sprovieri Collection, Rome; Semenzato, Florence, 15 December 2001, lot 134; Private Collection Literature H. Morley-Fletcher, R. McIlroy, Christie's Pictorial History of European Pottery, London 1984, p. 88, no. 9; A. Alverà Bortolotto, Maiolica in Venice in the Renaissance, Bergamo 1988, p. 87 ; G. Canelli, Maioliche veneziane del Cinquecento da collezioni private, exhibition catalogue Milan 1990, no. 19; T. Wilson Italian Maiolica of the Reinaissance, 1996, pp. 447-450 n. 175; P. Mazza in C. Ravanelli Guidotti (ed.), Maioliche della più bella fabbrica. Selezione dalle Civiche Collezioni Bresciane e da collezioni private , exhibition cat., Brescia 2006, pp.124-127, n. 33 Comparative literature M.P. Pavone, Maestro Domenico da Venezia e la spezieria del Grande Ospedale di Messina, in " Faenza". , LXXI, 1985, 1-3, pp. 49-66 n. 12 table VII; C. Ravanelli Guidotti, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza. The Angiolo Fanfani Donation. Ceramics from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, Faenza 1990, pp. 309-311, no. 152; C. Ravanelli Guidotti, Homage to Venice. Maioliche veneziane tra manierismo e barocco nelle raccolte del Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza. II, exhibition cat., Faenza 1998, pp. 43-44 no. 3; T. Wilson (ed.), Tin-glaze and image culture. The Mak maiolica collection in its wider context , Vienna 2022, p. 150 n. 104 The large pharmaceutical jar has a large globular body and a throated rim, in the form commonly known as a boccia. The decoration, which develops around the body of the vase with the exception of the shoulder, which contains a vegetal festoon motif, depicts a landscape punctuated by scenes of trees or rocks, within which one side shows a wide view of a marine scene dominated by a sailing ship and, on the other, a figure on horseback galloping in a landscape dominated by a turreted city with buildings and palaces with cusped roofs, centred by a large door with an arched archway. The bowl, published several times in the past, can be attributed to the activity of Domenico de' Betti known as Mastro Domenico da Venezia and his workshop, active between 1550 and 1580, famous for the unmistakable polychromy of its majolica, characterised by the use of shiny glazes. Mastro Domenico, who had married the daughter of the vase-maker Jacomo da Pesaro, worked in Venice in the San Polo district and the production of his workshop achieved great fame at the end of the 16th century, especially for the beauty of the landscapes depicted in his works. A comparison with a vase from the MIC in Faenza, in the Fanfani collection, with a large landscape is a valid benchmark for morphology and decoration, as is a comparison with other landscape works published in the catalogue of an interesting exhibition held at the Galleria Canelli in Milan in 1990, in which this work also appeared. A vase with landscape can also be found in the pharmacy in Messina, where we remember the rare vase dated 1562 and signed by Mastro Domenico, and a further new comparison comes from a recently published vase in the Johanneum Museum in Graz (inv. no. 0754), with a horseman on a donkey and a lake landscape with a turreted city, in whose file we find a suggestive hypothesis proposed by Maria Pia Pavone, regarding a possible commission of some vases by the Messina Spezieria around 1568. Little is still known about a possible commission directly from Venice or the formation of the Messina trousseau as a result of several different donations, but the search for a specific commission for these trousseaux and the actual possibility of recognising the various painters makes these impressive works even more fascinating.