Istoriato

イストリアート / c. 1500– / Style / Ceramic Styles

A way of painting maiolica in which the whole face of a dish becomes one picture, carrying a historical, mythological, Biblical or allegorical scene in colour all the way to the rim. It first appears around 1500 and is associated with Urbino. The vessel stops being a decorated object and turns into a support for painting.

One continuous scene from well to rim, with no decorative band cutting it off / Polychrome painting in yellow, blue, green and brown over a white tin glaze / Figures set inside a receding landscape or architecture, the composition borrowed straight from painting / The scene carrying on across the curved rim, so the image distorts with the vessel's form

Istoriato — Urbino workshop, footed dish with Abraham and Isaac, 16th century — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 — Urbino workshop, footed dish with Abraham and Isaac, 16th century — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 ／ Dish with Echo, Amor and Narcissus, 1535 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 ／ Leonardo Bettisi, two-handled vase, 16th century, Faenza — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

Istoriato — Dish with Echo, Amor and Narcissus, 1535 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 — Urbino workshop, footed dish with Abraham and Isaac, 16th century — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 ／ Dish with Echo, Amor and Narcissus, 1535 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 ／ Leonardo Bettisi, two-handled vase, 16th century, Faenza — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

Dictionary entry

Best used for: Laying out a plate or tile series where the painting runs to the rim instead of stopping at a border · Fitting one narrative moment into a circular field, on a dish or on any other round format
Type: Keep lettering out of the picture. If a scene needs naming, move the text off the field and write it small in a fine cursive hand.
Composition: Treat the well of the dish as a single picture plane and let the scene cross the rim rather than ending at a border. Group figures in the middle ground and open the upper field to sky and architecture.
Material: Paint directly in coloured pigments onto a raw white tin glaze, then fire so the colour sinks into the glaze. Nothing can be repainted, so every stroke is laid once.
Caution: Ringing the scene with a decorative border undoes the style, because it depends on the picture claiming the entire surface.
Further study: how the packing of the scene and the ground left empty differ between Urbino work and work from other centres / how much of the white of the tin glaze is left as ground / how the lines of figures and architecture distort on the curve of the rim

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