We just made two large ornamental plates that share the size – 60 cm in diameter – the decorations in Pavona and Persian palmette styles, and the central figure: the Astorre.
The Astorre is an imaginary bird, typical of highly glazed pottery tradition, somewhere between a goshawk and a heron. It owes its name probably to Astorre Manfredi, lord of Faenza also known as Astorgio.
The first dish is decorated in a traditional manner: the two Astorri, bird with a long, twisted neck, have been reinterpreted by a fifteenth-century vase kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In traditional symbolism, the trained animals plots represent the flow of divine energy in the forms, life, growth, continuity.
On board, the Pavona decoration is inspired by same historical period and developed with some characteristic features: the bright colors, the withered leaves around the peacock feather, a pyramidal flame.
Bernard Rackham describes these patterns in its “Masterpieces of Italian majolica” (1976, p. 32): “With stunning security, the potters of Faenza used countless reasons – figures, coats of arms, flowers or leaves – to enrich with their variety of rhythm and color plastic forms that are in themselves full of magnitude.”
If in the first, it followed the traditional, in this second plate we worked fantasy. At the center, the Astorre is caught with outspread wings, in the act of getting up in the air, to give an air lighter at the plate. For the same purpose on the edge we have given a slight movement to the palms. The colors, however, are the traditional ones.
Ideal to give prestige to your home environment, both dishes are prepared for posting on the wall or on the hood of a fireplace.
