On display
Image of Gallery in South Kensington

Drug Bottle

ca. 1500 (made)
Artist/Maker
Unknown (made)
Place of origin
Montelupo (Made)
Faenza (made)

Drug bottle, pear-shaped body with tall neck flaring out at the rim. Tin-glazed earthenware, tin-glazed inside and out but not under the base. Painted in blue and orange.
A label in the middle inscribed with the name of the contents: SPo DIBISANTi. Around the neck are 'San Bernardino rays' springing upwards and downwards from an horizontal band. The rest of the surface is covered with rows of pyramidal leaves in alternate squares.

Object details

Categories
Medicine
Maiolica
Object type
drug bottle
Materials and techniques
Tin-glazed earthenware painted in colours
Earthenware
Throwing
Tin Glazing
Brief description
Drug bottle, tin-glazed earthenware painted in colours, inscribed SPo DIBISANTi, Italy (probably Montelupo or Faenza), ca. 1500
Physical description
Drug bottle, pear-shaped body with tall neck flaring out at the rim. Tin-glazed earthenware, tin-glazed inside and out but not under the base. Painted in blue and orange.
A label in the middle inscribed with the name of the contents: SPo DIBISANTi. Around the neck are 'San Bernardino rays' springing upwards and downwards from an horizontal band. The rest of the surface is covered with rows of pyramidal leaves in alternate squares.
Dimensions
  • Height: 30.5cm
Marks and inscriptions
SPo DIBISANTi
Translation
Syrup of Byzantium
Transliteration
Syrupus de byzantiis
Object history
acquired from an unknown source with another bottle from the same set (2561-1856)

Transferred to the Circulation Department in 1909
Associated object
2561-1856 (Set)
Bibliographic references
  • Elisa Sani, Not in Rackham - Italian Renaissance maiolica in the Victoria and Albert Museumm – Part 1, Keramos 210 (2010), pp. 1-30, cat. 5
  • Berti, Fausto. Storia della ceramica di Montelupo, Montelupo 1997-2003, Vol III, figs. 101-103 for similar decorations found on shards excavated in Montelupo
  • Cora, Galeazzo. Storia della maiolica di Firenze e del contado: Secoli XIV e XV. Florence 1973, Tav. 252c-253.
  • Two other examples from this highly original series are known, Rackham 1940, no. 144, present jar mentioned in the catalogue entry
  • Fortnum, C.D.E. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Maiolica... in the South Kensington Museum. London 1873, p. 539
  • A piece from the same set in is the Musee du Louvre, Giacomotti 1974, p. 40, 150
Collection
Ceramics Collection
Accession number
2560-1856

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O343507/drug-bottle-unknown/
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