Castelli Maiolica Dish With Young Man In Black Hat, Dog And Classical Ruins, Mid-18th Century

Castelli maiolica dish with young man in black hat, dog and classical ruins, mid-18th century

Polychrome tin-glazed maiolica (grand feu)

Italy, Castelli d’Abruzzo, mid-18th century

Diameter: approx. 17.5 cm

Hand-painted maiolica dish from Castelli, decorated with a vivid pastoral scene: a young man wearing a wide black hat, seated on a grassy bank, reaches out to a dog leaping up towards him. The gestures and composition evoke a simple, narrative moment, in the spirit of popular decorative art.

To the left stands a group of classical architectural ruins with Corinthian columns, while the background opens onto a lake landscape, with a small boat, distant figures, and a classical building framed by a range of bluish hills. The surrounding vegetation includes trees with twisting trunks and foliage painted in lively, rhythmic strokes, reflecting the Arcadian sensibility typical of Castelli maiolica in the 18th century.

The colour palette — cobalt blue, copper green, antimony yellow, ochre and manganese brown — is applied in grand feu technique, with swift, expressive brushwork.

Back glazed in white, undecorated.