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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Walter Del Pellegrino, post: 427041, member: 90&quot;]Based on the style of the decoration I believe this is perhaps an early 20th century piece. The plate itself is obviously handmade of terra-cotta. It seems to have been produced by using a hand press in the same manner as would have been used during the Renaissance. The holes near the rim, used for hanging the plate, were made before the plate was fired in the kiln. This is an indication that the plate was created to serve solely as a tondo (circular artwork) and simply not a plate that someone decided to paint over. This leads to the supposition that it is the work of a professional ceramicist. There a number of reasons I believe it is 20th century rather than earlier. First and most importantly is the treatment of the design. Never have I seen an early example where the main design goes right to the rim of the plate. Medieval and Renaissance art was highly formulated. That is to say that rules were set and rarely broken. Even the old Istoriato plates (biblical, historical, and mythological subjects) are trimmed at the edges with a single color all around. The portrait itself is much too loose in its composition to be of the distant past and more closely resembles work seen during the Art Deco period of the 1920’s. The blue of this plate appears much too weak. Period pieces would have been made by grounding the mineral lapis lazuli. This would have imparted a much stronger blue than is seen on this example. I must conclude that this is an early 20th century tondo probably of southern Italian origin. Having said all that I must add that I like this piece of artwork. It shows a boldness rarely encountered in such pieces for its time.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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