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Maiolica

Maiolica is the name given to tin glazed earthenware of Italian manufacture.

This pottery is covered in an opaque white tin oxide glaze which was decorated in polychrome colours painted onto the absorbent glazed ground, something that requires great artistic skill.

There were numerous centres of production throughout Italy including Florence, Urbino, Faenza, Deruta and Gubbio and Naples in the South.

Some of the most prestigious pieces were created in the 16th century by known artists who decorated plates and dishes with elaborate scenes from classical mythology and the bible. These are known as Istoriato ware.


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Octavius bust crowns US architect's maiolica collection

20 November 2023

The first day of the Annual Thanksgiving Auction at Kaminski Auctions in Beverly, Massachusetts on November 25-26 is devoted to the collection of Robert ‘Bob’ Eigelberger.

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Parcours prepares for action once again

28 August 2023

The Parcours de la Céramique et des Arts du Feu is an annual gallery-based event in Paris focusing on a broad range of ceramics and glass, both antique and modern, from Europe and Asia

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Sèvres and maiolica stand out in particular among long-established dealer family’s collection

15 August 2022

The Nicolier family were long-established antiques dealers who were based on the Quai Voltaire on the Parisian left bank for many decades.

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Deruta portrait plate offered in Paris

20 June 2022

This Italian maiolica plate painted with a profile portrait of man and an inscribed scrolling ribbon comes from Deruta and dates from the early 16th century.

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Drug jars given auction treatment

23 May 2022

Single sale offers two notable collections featuring Italian maiolica and French faience

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Maiolica dish makes £1.04m impact at auction

11 October 2021

An extremely rare and early Italian maiolica dish, discovered broken in pieces in a drawer, was hammered down at just over £1m at Lyon & Turnbull.

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Bidders recognise maiolica dish as three centuries older than catalogued

13 September 2021

Although catalogued as 19th century, this 10½in (27cm) maiolica dish is more probably 16th century.

Maiolica dish

Maiolica dish stars in our latest pick of four auction highlights

13 August 2021

Our pick of four items that sold many times above estimate includes a Maiolica dish deemed three centuries older than catalogued.

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Fragment of magnificent dish makes bullish £4600

02 November 2020

This tin-glazed earthenware fragment comes from a once magnificent early Italian maiolica ‘istoriato’ dish from the first half of the 16th century.

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Meissen figure groups make key contribution to auction of Müller-Frei collection

13 July 2020

The sale of the Müller-Frei collection of paintings and decorative arts held by Koller (25% buyer’s premium) in Zurich last month included two early 18th century Meissen figure groups that outstripped their estimates.

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Maltese connection lifts maiolica storage jar

04 May 2020

The latest Fine Interiors sale at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) included among the opening lots this large 22in (54cm) high maiolica storage jar.

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Maiolica discoveries at Newbattle

10 February 2020

The opening lot of the Five Centuries sale at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh on February 5 was this previously unrecorded maiolica handled and spouted wet drug jar.

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Pick of the week: Maiolica renaissance as basin from Italian workshop makes £100,000

02 September 2019

Dealers from France and England contributed to a protracted bidding battle for a rare Renaissance maiolica dish offered at an auction house in Saxony.

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Maiolica jars bring some magic to Salisbury

18 March 2019

The ceramics sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on April 30 includes two maiolica apothecary jars and covers from the celebrated Fortuna series – an ambitious suite of pharmacy jars and jugs made in the third quarter of the 16th century.

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Early maiolica market tester at Sam Fogg

10 April 2017

A ground-breaking Mayfair exhibition takes a rare focus on first examples of the maiolica technique.

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Maiolica charger takes £210,000 at Sotheby’s

28 January 2016

Sotheby’s recent sale of royal and aristocratic heirlooms, titled Of Royal and Noble Descent, included this maiolica istoriato charger.

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Coslov majolica collection comes to London

20 August 2014

Highlights from the Coslov collection of English majolica will be on show in London next month prior to their sale at Freeman’s in Philadelphia on October 7.

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Maiolica dish well worth the 30-year wait

12 December 2011

This previously unrecorded and beautifully painted dish, dated 1537, by the maiolica artist Francesco Xanto Avelli (c.1486-1542) sold for £325,000 at Lyon & Turnbull's latest in Edinburgh.

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Crow’s clear the cracked Deck

01 September 2004

ONE of the pioneers of the vogue for Japanese and Chinese design in the 1870s, Joseph Theodore Deck was also one of the first 19th century potters to explore Isnik floral designs and colour schemes. It was during his efforts to replicate the Turkish palette that he perfected the turquoise glaze that came to be known as bleu de Deck, or Deck blue.

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Majolica rarities still hold firm

22 June 2004

WHILE recent months have seen some softening in the majolica market as a whole, scarce pieces by good makers continue to attract bids close to those they did three or four years ago. Pictured right is one of George Jones’ best-known Stilton dish designs, modelled as a thatched bee skep on a rustic base of mottled greens and browns that also includes a registration lozenge for 1872.