{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O119967"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O119967/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2008BT0031/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2008BT0031/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2008BT0031","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2008BR9823","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017JU6147","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017JX3845","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB8355","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O119967/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O119967","accessionNumber":"1805-1855","objectType":"Dish","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"The decoration is scratched through a surface coating of white slip, laid over the darker clay body of the earthenware. In this manner, the decoration stands out as dark lines on a pale background. The decoration is then highlighted with metallic oxides to produce the green and brownish-yellow colours. Finally, the dish is covered with a transparent lead glaze and then fired again in the kiln. It is at this point that the painted coloured oxides would run in the glaze causing the variegated effect you see here.\r\n\r\nIncised slipware was a predominantly northern Italian tradition. The abundant, dark-red local clay was used to optimum decorative advantage, when contrasted with fine white clay which could be obtained from Vicenza. Two notable centres of production were Bologna and Ferrara, where the court demanded wares of the highest quality.\r\n\r\nLarge dishes like this were used for bringing food to the table and serving, as well as for display. Contemporary illustrations, show servants carrying large dishes covered by a second dish, which served as a cover to keep the food hot. The unusually elaborate decoration on the reverse of this dish, suggests that it might have had a dual function of both dish and cover.","physicalDescription":"Large dish with decoration of six tree-climbing cupids and two dragons. On the back a similarly elaborate incised decoration, showing a stag in front of a hurdle in the centre, surrounded by two bands of floral scrolls, the inner one interspersed with five smaller medallions, depicting a female head in profile, a stag, a bird, a hare and a hound. The decoration is scratched through a surface coating of white slip, laid over the darker clay body of the earthenware. Covered with a transparent lead-glaze, partially stained with iron (for amber-brown), manganese (for purple) or copper (for green).","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"earthenware","id":"x29356"},{"text":"tin glaze","id":"AAT233436"}],"techniques":[],"materialsAndTechniques":"Incised slipware, lead-glazed","categories":[{"text":"Ceramics","id":"THES48982"},{"text":"Earthenware","id":"THES48964"},{"text":"Enslavement","id":"THES396519"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"CER","id":"THES48594"},"images":["2008BT0031","2008BR9823","2017JU6147","2017JX3845","2017KB8355"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"143 (VA)","id":"THES49867"},"free":"","case":"14","shelf":"1","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Dish","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Ferrara","id":"x32049"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":"Probably"}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1470 to 1500","earliest":"1470-01-01","latest":"1500-12-31"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Diameter","value":"39.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Weight","value":"2.05","unit":"kg","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"6.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Purchased from the Bernal Collection\n\n<u>Provenance</u>\r\n\r\nRalph Bernal (1783-1854) was a renowned collector and objects from his collection are now in museums across the world, including the V&A. He was born into a Sephardic Jewish family of Spanish descent, but was baptised into the Christian religion at the age of 22. Bernal studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and subsequently became a prominent Whig politician. He built a reputation for himself as a man of taste and culture through the collection he amassed and later in life he became the president of the British Archaeological Society. Yet the main source of income which enabled him to do this was the profits from enslaved labour.\r\n\r\nIn 1811, Bernal inherited three sugar plantations in Jamaica, where over 500 people were eventually enslaved. Almost immediately, he began collecting works of art and antiquities. After the emancipation of those enslaved in the British Caribbean in the 1830s, made possible in part by acts of their own resistance, Bernal was awarded compensation of more than £11,450 (equivalent to over £1.5 million today). This was for the loss of 564 people enslaved on Bernal's estates who were classed by the British government as his 'property'. They included people like Antora, and her son Edward, who in August 1834 was around five years old (The National Archives, T 71/49). Receiving the money appears to have led to an escalation of Bernal's collecting.\r\n\r\nWhen Bernal died in 1855, he was celebrated for 'the perfection of his taste, as well as the extent of his knowledge' (Christie and Manson, 1855). His collection was dispersed in a major auction during which the Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House, which later became the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A), was the biggest single buyer. ","historicalContext":"Large dishes like this were used for bringing food to the table and serving, as well as for display. Contemporary illustrations, show servants carrying large dishes covered by a second dish, which served as a cover to keep the food hot. The unusually elaborate decoration on the reverse of this dish, suggests that it might have had a dual function of both dish and cover.","briefDescription":"Red earthenware covered with a white slip and with incised decoration. North Italian (Ferrara), c.1470-1500","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Nepoti, S., Ceramiche Graffite della donazione Donini Baer, Faenza (Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza) 1991, cats. 40-49"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Honey, W.B., 'Bologna Pottery of the Renaissance Period', The Burlington Magazine, vol.48, no.278 (May 1926), pp.224-235"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Rackham, Bernard, Catalogue of Italian Maiolica, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 1940"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Reggi, G.L., Commune di Ferrara. Ceramica nelle civiche collezioni, catalogo della mostra, Ferrara, 1972"},{"reference":{"text":"Christie and Manson, <i>Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Works of Art, from the Byzantine Period to that of Louis Seize, of that Distinguished Collector, Ralph Bernal</i> (London, 1855)","id":"AUTH403540"},"details":"","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Slave Registers: Jamaica: St. Ann. (1) Indexed, 1832, T 71/49","id":"AUTH403536"},"details":"","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"Hannah Young, ''The perfection of his taste': Ralph Bernal, collecting and slave-ownership in 19th-century Britain', <i>Cultural and Social History</i>, 19:1 (2022), pp. 19-37 ","id":"AUTH403542"},"details":"","free":""}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[{"text":"Bernal, Ralph","id":"C2927"}],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"stag","id":"x30301"},{"text":"cupids","id":"x37689"},{"text":"dragons","id":"x30096"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"1. Dish\r\nItaly, probably Ferrara, 1480-1500\r\nThe potter has given the cupids greater prominence by painting the surrounding areas with underglaze colours.","date":{"text":"(TAB) 2009","earliest":"2009-01-01","latest":"2009-12-31"}}],"partNumbers":["1805-1855"],"accessionNumberNum":"1805","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1855,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"Rackham (1977)","id":"THES56972"},"number":"1335"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2019LP3075","2019LT5829","2019LW7292"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-16","recordCreationDate":"2005-12-20","availableToBook":false}}