By Nove di Bassano
Located in Downingtown, PA
Italian Creamware Trompe l’Oeil Duck Tureens, Pair, Nove di Bassano
Circa 1786–1802
Nove di Bassano, Veneto, Italy. Pasquale Antonibon factory, period of Giovanni Maria Baccin.
Each of these two soup tureens is modeled as a duck at rest upon a low oval mound base, the body divided horizontally so that the upper half, with the head and neck, lifts away as the cover and seats into the lower basin. The modeling is naturalistic throughout, the plumage and the curve of the bill worked in crisp relief, and the pair are left entirely undecorated so that nothing competes with the sculpture.
They are made in terraglia, the refined cream-colored earthenware developed in Italy in emulation of the Queen’s Ware perfected by Josiah Wedgwood in Staffordshire. Terraglia all’inglese reached the Veneto in 1780, when Carlo Vicentini del Giglio introduced it at Vicenza, and Giovanni Maria Baccin took up its manufacture at Nove from 1786, working calcium and magnesium carbonate and silica into the plastic clay; gypsum quarried at Asiago gave the body its characteristic ivory tone, which the lustrous clear glaze here carries across the whole surface.
Tureens in the form of birds, animals and fruit belong to a European fashion for the trompe l’oeil table...
Category
Late 18th Century Italian Neoclassical Antique Ceramic Centerpieces
MaterialsCreamware, Pottery