POLYCHROME MAJOLICA ALBARELLO, ATTRIBUTED TO THE MASTER OF SCAPIGLIATI HAIR, VENICE, CIRCA 1580 decorated with busts in reserve on a background of flowers and plant racemes; wear and tear, restoration to the foot and minor pictorial interventions to the mouth H 26.4 cm, diam. 21.5 cm A VENICE MAIOLICA ALBARELLO; CIRCA 1580; WORN, BASE RESTORATION AND MINOR RE-PAINTINGS AT THE UPPER RIM This albarello, decorated with the busts of a young man and a soldier on a background of flowers and fruit, belongs to the production that developed in Venice during the second half of the 16th century under the influence of Domenico da Venezia and characterised by the use of reserves with busts on a vegetal background scattered with white graffiti on a dark blue background. In this case, it is possible to recognise the hand of an as yet unidentified decorator to whom a group of homogeneous works can be referred: this Maestro dei Capelli Scapigliati (Master of the Scapigliati Hair) was so called because the young men he portrayed had shaggy hair. See for comparison the albarello from the Mereghi donation in the Faenza Museum (C. Ravanelli Guidotti, Donazione Paolo Mereghi. European and Oriental Ceramics, Casalecchio di Reno 1987, p. 228).