Italian antique ceramics

Italian antique ceramics are mostly tin-glazed earthenware, called maiolica, made in workshops rather than a single national factory. Deruta, Faenza, Urbino, Castelli, Caltagirone, Grottaglie and Vietri each have a palette, a repertoire of shapes and a way of finishing the foot. Collectors start with the body: a tin-opacified glaze, brushwork that sank in during the fire, and a rim or foot that was wiped clean before the kiln. Istoriato narrative painting, Deruta and Gubbio lustre, Faenza berettino and the patterned wares of the south are different products and should not be priced as one category. Marks come last. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century workshops reused older devices, and a painted town name on a souvenir plate is not a date. These articles cover town histories, mark-and-construction checks and the copies that followed the Grand Tour and later tourism. Porcelain, a different paste and a factory system, is listed separately.

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