Ancient Maiolica Plates, Pasquale Rubati Milan Circa 1770-1780

Five oval maiolica plates with pierced edge
Manufacture of Pasquale Rubati
Milan, 1770-1780
Three small oval plates 10.23 in x 7.67 in (26 cm x 19.5 cm)
Two large oval plates 10.82 in x 8.85 in (27.5 x 22.5 cm)
State of preservation: intact

The five plates of different sizes have an oval shape, a mixtilinear edge and a molded polylobed mold with a surface enriched with a relief weave motif extending to the brim and forming a perforated basket-shaped ornamentation.
The decoration painted in the characteristic tones of the oriental Imari typology, red, blue with touches of gold, shows an idealized oriental landscape that develops around a perforated rock. From this stone, boughs branch off following arched courses and are adorned with peonies or with long lanceolate leaves. A fence completes the composition. The hem is decorated with a motif of a dense chain of eggs.

The Imari decoration, clearly inspired by the East, derives from Japanese productions that, by way of Chinese culture, came to the West where the taste for chinoiserie became widespread during the XVIII century. At the Milanese factories the decoration took on various ornamental declinations, often distinguished solely by elements of morphological enrichment or distinguishable only by signed works.

In Milan in the 18th century, two majolica factories were active. The first was that of Felice Clerici, from 1745, and the second was opened by Pasquale Rubati in 1756, in competition with Felice, for whom he had been a worker. Upon Rubati's death, in 1796, the enterprise was continued for a few years under his son Carlo.

This type of decoration was produced by both Milanese factories, but its quality, the originality of the mold and the meticulousness in the realization of the motifs, lead us to confidently attribute the works to Pasquale Rubati's manufacture - to which we owe the most complex specimens - and date them to the 1770s, its most prosperous period (Ausenda R., by the Museums and Galleries of Milan. Museum of Applied Arts. The ceramics. Second tome. Milan 2001, pp. 318- 322, No. 315).