DOI Heft:
No. 195 (June, 1909)
DOI Artikel:Vallance, Aymer: Hispano-moresque lustre ware
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20967#0040
Hispano-Moresque Lustre IVare
on No. 13 yet been identified. No. 9 displays a
wyvern ; while No. 14, a lion rampant holding in
his dexter paw a fleur-de-lys, probably represents
some Italian family, notwithstanding the shield
itself is not of Italian shape.
Among other examples not yet referred to, five
comprise representations of various birds, which,
not being charged upon shields, are to be regarded
as decorative rather than heraldic. Nos. 2 and 5,
the former adorned with a fine rendering of a raven,
are both early examples, dating from the first
quarter of the fifteenth century. Nos. 15 and 23
depict birds more nearly like pigeons than any
FIG. 12. —BROWN LUSTRE DISH, IN. DIAMETER
(VALENCIA, XV-.—-XVI. CENT.)
others. In the subject of No. i—a late fifteenth-
century dish in the Victoria and Albert Museum—
the student of mediaeval natural history lore current
at the time when the work in question was pro-
duced will have no difficulty in recognising the
hoopoe. This bird, according to the passage trans-
lated from the Latin text of the Bestiary, is one
which “when it finds that its parents have waxen
old and their eyes dimmed, gently extracts their
worn-out feathers, salves their eyes, and warms
their limbs, as who would say to them, ‘As ye
FIG. 13. —LUSTRE AND BLUE DISH (VALENCIA,
c. 1475—1500)
have laboured to rear me, so do I in like manner
for you.’ Thus are the parent birds again renewed
in youth and vigour.” The moral—for every such
fable, no matter how fantastic, always conveys
some ethical or dogmatic application—is that “ if
brute creatures perform such filial service for one
another without understanding though they are,
much more ought reasonable human beings to
render support in their turn to father and mother.”
In the present representation the two young birds,
depicted on a smaller scale to betoken that they
are the offspring of the other, are in the act of re-
juvenating the parent hoopoe. It may be remarked
that, in the official label, the bird is identified as a
pelican, to traditional representations of which it
bears not the slightest resemblance.
Among the floral forms which are of most
frequent occurrence in Hispano-Moresque lustre-
ware the vine-leaf ornament of the early fifteenth-
century drug-pot, No. 16—the earliest of all the
drug-pots illustrated—and also the bryony scrolls,
on No. 13 yet been identified. No. 9 displays a
wyvern ; while No. 14, a lion rampant holding in
his dexter paw a fleur-de-lys, probably represents
some Italian family, notwithstanding the shield
itself is not of Italian shape.
Among other examples not yet referred to, five
comprise representations of various birds, which,
not being charged upon shields, are to be regarded
as decorative rather than heraldic. Nos. 2 and 5,
the former adorned with a fine rendering of a raven,
are both early examples, dating from the first
quarter of the fifteenth century. Nos. 15 and 23
depict birds more nearly like pigeons than any
FIG. 12. —BROWN LUSTRE DISH, IN. DIAMETER
(VALENCIA, XV-.—-XVI. CENT.)
others. In the subject of No. i—a late fifteenth-
century dish in the Victoria and Albert Museum—
the student of mediaeval natural history lore current
at the time when the work in question was pro-
duced will have no difficulty in recognising the
hoopoe. This bird, according to the passage trans-
lated from the Latin text of the Bestiary, is one
which “when it finds that its parents have waxen
old and their eyes dimmed, gently extracts their
worn-out feathers, salves their eyes, and warms
their limbs, as who would say to them, ‘As ye
FIG. 13. —LUSTRE AND BLUE DISH (VALENCIA,
c. 1475—1500)
have laboured to rear me, so do I in like manner
for you.’ Thus are the parent birds again renewed
in youth and vigour.” The moral—for every such
fable, no matter how fantastic, always conveys
some ethical or dogmatic application—is that “ if
brute creatures perform such filial service for one
another without understanding though they are,
much more ought reasonable human beings to
render support in their turn to father and mother.”
In the present representation the two young birds,
depicted on a smaller scale to betoken that they
are the offspring of the other, are in the act of re-
juvenating the parent hoopoe. It may be remarked
that, in the official label, the bird is identified as a
pelican, to traditional representations of which it
bears not the slightest resemblance.
Among the floral forms which are of most
frequent occurrence in Hispano-Moresque lustre-
ware the vine-leaf ornament of the early fifteenth-
century drug-pot, No. 16—the earliest of all the
drug-pots illustrated—and also the bryony scrolls,