Versatoio

Molded spout with ribs in the body, stick handle with central swelling, high trumpet foot, mouth with hems.
Majolica decorated on milky enamel in green monochrome; in the centre a bouquet of flowers with daisies and lanceolate leaves; in the hemming under the mouth and in the trumpet foot, register with running leafed twigs.
H.cm.21,5. Cond: very good.
Bibl.: published in Gardelli 2016, pp.80-81.
NAPLES, Saverio Grue, 18th century, second half.

The versant, borrowed from metal prototypes, finds evidence of form and decoration in majolica from the late eighteenth century, generally attributed to Gesualdo Fuina, or even to the workshop De Martinis (V. de Pompeis, 2001, pp. 154, 157). However, after a careful research, this beautiful majolica can be attributed to the hand of Saverio Grue (1731- 1799ca). In fact, the large bouquet of daisies with long and enveloping lance-shaped leaves, in which the artist uses a very special tender green, finds precise feedback in an albarello of the Tondolo Collection, where flowering plants act as a beautiful picture frame for a character with a large wig ringlets. Albarello, exhibited in the Teramo Exhibition in 2004, is found fully included in the catalog of Saverio Grue (Proterra 2004, n. 155). The same green, so peculiar to Saverio, is often associated with a golden yellow, both of which are softened in delicate shades, as in the white-painted vase of the Aboca Museum, in Borgo San Sepolcro (Proterra 2004, n. 149). It is interesting to note as already Concezio Rosa in 1857, confirmed a century later by the researches of Guido Donatone (Donatone 1988, pp.73-74) he considered the Fuina disciple and heir of the painting of extraordinary elegance of Saverio Grue, after 1756, before that the artist devoted himself to porcelain in the Royal Factory of Naples. The Central European culture expressed by the versant is an indication of the new course of eighteenth-century ceramic painting, which Saverio noted and learned in his travels abroad.