Two Ceiling Tiles with a Boar and a Hound
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| Artist: | Anonymous (Valencian) |
| Created: | ca. 1396-1410 |
| Medium: | manganese oxide and iron oxide on unglazed earthenware |
| Dimensions: | 12 ¾ x 14 ½ in (32.2 x 36.6 cm); 12 ½ x 14 ¼ in (31.9 x 36.2 cm) |
| Credit Line: | museum purchase, 1958 |
| Accession No.: | 48.2106.1, 48.2106.9 |
| Description: | ceiling tiles (socarrats) with animal images |
| Culture: | Valencian |
| Period: | Late Medieval |
| Country: | Spain |
| Style: | Gothic |
Contents |
Description
These two pieces were first published as coming from an old building in the town of Benaguasil, considered a “palace of the Moorish kings” and demolished in 1905.[1] This provenance information is most probably wrong. The boar is an unclean animal for Muslims and its depiction would have been out of place in a Moor’s residence. Both tiles belong to a set defined by identical size and very similar decoration.[2] Seven pieces from this set are known to have been purchased ca. 1890 from an old house in the city of Valencia.[3] One of these is painted with a profile bust of a crowned ruler, perhaps Martin the Humane, king of Aragon (1396-1410) and Sicily (1409-10),[4] which provides a reference point for tentatively dating the pieces and suggests that they may have originally decorated a royal residence. Although no comparable examples survive in situ, it is known that tiles like these formed decorated ceilings by being laid upon the wooden cross-beams in bands of apparently unrelated motifs.[5] The animals seen here have no emblematic significance and simply allude to hunting, a favorite aristocratic pastime.
References
- ↑ F. Almarche Vásquez, “Cerámica de Paterna: ‘Els socarrats’”, Archivo de arte valenciano 10 (1924), 30-58, esp. 33-4; cf. M. González Martí, Cerámica del Levante español, siglos medievales, 3 vols. (Barcelona, 1944-52), III: 521-3 with figs. 669-78.
- ↑ WAM Inv. 48.2106.2 and 48.2106.10 (formerly Hearst lot S/B 569, nos. 90-91); M. González Martí, Cerámica del Levante español, siglos medievales, 3 vols. (Barcelona, 1944-52), III: figs. 551, 568, 572, 578, 581 (almost identical with WAM 48.2106.2), 589.
- ↑ González Martí, Cerámica del Levante español, III: 434.
- ↑ Ibid., III: 436.
- ↑ Reconstruction drawing: González Martí, Cerámica del Levante español, III: pl. viii.
Provenance
Possibly from the house at 14 calle de Roteros, Valencia, sold ca. 1890 (?) – William R. Hearst (d. 1951), San Simeon, California, ca. 1930, by purchase; Hearst estate (inv. 2597; lot S/B 569, nos. 92 and 88), by descent; Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1958, by purchase.
Bibliography
F. Almarche Vásquez, “Cerámica de Paterna: ‘Els socarrats’”, Archivo de arte valenciano 10 (1924), 30-58, esp. 33-4; repr. F. Almarche Vásquez, Cerámica de Paterna: “Els socarrats” (Valencia, 1926), 4-5.
