Bowl with Crowned Pierced Heart

Giorgio di Pietro Andreoli, better known in his own time as Maestro Giorgio, was born in northern Italy in the later 1460s and established a workshop in Gubbio about 1490. He became renowned for the gold and red metallic lusters the shop employed to embellish the tin-glazed maiolica wares they had created themselves or which frequently came to them for adornment from other painters. As though in competition with the latter, Andreoli's signature frequently appears on the back of the pieces that passed through his shop (though not in this case). To fill the great demand for lusterware, Maestro Giorgio's shop produced stock pieces, and this bowl is probably such an example. It is typical of his early production in its use of stylized plant forms and widely popular symbolic imagery--here a pierced heart--all enlivened by the extensive use of gold-colored luster that adds a luxurious surface quality to the piece.
For more on earthenware and luster, see no. 48.2111.
For more on maiolica, see no. 48.1336.
For additional pieces from the workshop of Giorgio Andreoli, click on his name in the "creator" field.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

T. B. Clarke [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [no. 660]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, American Art Galleries, New York, Jan. 3, 1917, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.