Buff earthenware covered with a thin tin glaze and painted in green and brown with a leaf design. Italian (Orvieto or Deruta), about 1450-75

Cylindrical body with slanting shoulder and wide flanged neck. Round the body large leaves, alternately, trefoil and heart-shaped, branching from a continuous wavy stem. An obliquely striped band round the shoulder, chain-pattern round the neck.

Given by Sydney Vacher

Sydney Vacher gave this and 5 other pieces of 'Orvieto ware' to the museum in 1914. He had acquired these at the Marcioni and Lucatelli sale at Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, (16-17 Feb.1914) from the collections formed by Signor Avvocato Marcioni and Cavaliere Capitano Lucatelli of Orvieto.
This jug was recorded as having been dug up in Orvieto.
It is likely that the jug was found in a similar context to other pieces of maiolica known to have been found in pozzi (wells) in Orvieto. Around the turn of the 20th century, a great deal of building work was going on in Orvieto including replacing the old medieval system of plumbing. Many pieces of so-called 'archaic maiolica' were brought up out of wells and thus from unstratified contexts.

Copying Hispano-Moreque style (see 363-1889).

C.113-1914