Italian earthenware in Qajar style by Torquato Castellani

tin glazed earthenware

The back of the plate is initialled TC and dated 1880 with "Roma" and "Albano" within blue concentric circles.

35.00cm

13.78 inches

Torquato Castellani (1846-1931) was the son of Alessandro Castellani, an Italian goldsmith and ceramics collector. After a brief period in Paris, where he opened a shop combining antiques with jewellery on the Champs Elysees in 1860, he founded a workshop teaching goldsmithery and ceramics in Napels in 1862. His inspiration was initially Italian renaissance maiolica from the 15th and 16th century, later he copied Byzantine, Hispano-Moresque and Iznik wares. In 1870 he settled in Rome and attracted the attention of people such as Adrien Dubouche, the director of the ceramics museum in Limoges, and E Fortnum, who commissioned a heraldic plate and three Iznik style plates, one of which is now in the Ashmolean museum in Oxford. Another major influence on Castellani's work was Owen Jones who published the Dictionary of Ornament in 1856. In the V&A collection there is a plate painted with his portrait and inscribed: 'Owen Jones Principe dell'ornamente" by Castellani.

the tinglazed earthenware plate is painted in turquoise, cobalt, manganese, black and yellow with a Qajar scene of a huntsman on horseback holding a bird, within a border of flowerheads and carnations. The back of the plate is initialled TC and dated 1880 with "Roma" and "Albano" within blue concentric circles.

FOR SALE