Red earthenware covered with a white slip with decoration of a cat incised through the slip; unpainted and unglazed. Kiln waster. Italian, Emilia-Romagna, date uncertain.

Red earthenware covered with a white slip (now discoloured) with decoration of a cat incised through the slip. The cat, which is in the centre, sits on a bed of grass. The background around him is dotted with a single 8-lobed rosette behind his head. The brim is wide with a raised lip and banded ornamentation. The first band (closest to the lip) consists of a frieze of stylised straight-sided four-leaved flowers. Band two is a simple incised line. Band 3 is a wide band of stylised fans. The central medallion is attached to the wide brim with shellac. On the reverse of the dish there are markings done in ink with incised lines that seem to indicate join marks between the brim and medallion. The ink markings appear to be different border types and are marked numerically.

Gift of RS Brown

(MA/1/B3011 Nominal File): Gift from R.S. Brown, Esq. in 1909 who seems to have purchased it from dealers in Bologna in 1908. Brown also gave fragments of incised slipware to the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Note from Rackham to Wylde: This plate is an example of North Italian sgraffiato ware of about 1480, in an unfinished condition, having been left in the biscuit state without a glaze. For this reason it would be of value to technical students, and if the place where it was found is known, it would be an important documentary piese as indication in all probablility the site of a factory. the design is good and characteristic of the period...

A dish with almost exactly the same decoration in the centre was illustrated by Federico Argnani in his Il Ruinascimento delle cheramiche maiolicated in Faenza, published in Faenza in 1898. He attributed it to Faenza and the latter part of the 15th century.

There are dished with the same border pattern illustrated in Reggi, La ceramica...Emilia-Romagna. These dishes are attributed to Ferrara, 1st half 16th cetnury. However, he also illustrates a fragment with the same border pattern which is attributed to Carpi, early 17th century amd another dish of the same date but attributed to Modena.

This dish is a rare example of a whole waster. The dish was made, covered with slip, the decoration incised through the slip and then fired in a kiln. This is known as the biscuit-firing. It was at this stage that the dish was damaged in the kiln and discarded. The museum acquired it from a collector who purchased it from a dealer in Bologna in 1908. We can only surmise from this information that it was made in Bologna or perhaps the surrounding area. If it had been excavated from a controlled archaeological site, we would then have evidence of the location of a kiln where it had been made.

C.704-1909