Pieces marked with a cross, particularly berettino-ground pieces, are associated with Venice and nearby Padua in the 16th century. Istoriato wares on a berettino ground were made in the workshop of Nicola dai Putti (also known as Nicola delle Maioliche) in Padua,1 and a cross, apparently used as a mark, appears on pieces marked as being made in Padua.2 It was thought that the cross was distinctive to Padua, but a piece in the Victoria and Albert museum, London, marked with a cross is also marked as being made in Maestro Ludovico’s workshop in Venice.3 As Padua was so close to Venice, presumably potters and painters could move between the two cities with a degree of ease, and firm attributions for many pieces remain elusive. Thornton and Wilson note that on some of the istoriatopieces which are thought to be Paduan the ‘figure drawing resembles that of Francesco Durantino’,4 suggesting that the painter was ‘from or had links with Urbino’.
1. Dated pieces attributable to his workshop bear dates between 1548 and 1564. See Timothy Wilson, Italian Maiolica and Europe, Medieval, Renaissance, and later Italian pottery in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, with some examples illustrating the spread of tin-glazed pottery across Europe, Oxford, 2017, p. 85, note 4 for a short list of pieces.
2. See Dora Thornton and Timothy Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London, 2009, p. 102, no. 66. Also see p. 99, where the authors note that Michelangelo Munarini suggested that the cross may refer to the Santa Croce district of Padua where Nicola dai Putti lived.
3. Bernard Rackham, Catalogue of Italian Maiolica, London, 1940, no. 960.
4. Thornton and Wilson, ibid., 2009, p. 99.