Pot with Lid

Pot with Lid - Technique and Influences

Pot with Lid
Venice, ca. 1750

This flat bottomed, pear-shaped pot is an example of the use of milky glass to copy porcelain known in the 18th c. as porcellana contrafacta (Ital. contrafare = copying). Their painted decoration had similarities with imports from China and Saxony.

After a time colour was added to the material itself, sometimes as part of the basic patterning, sometimes as applied decoration. The irregularly distributed spots and the feather pattern were widely used in the 2nd half of the 18th c. A contemporary pot "sprinkled" with milky glass can be seen in the Naples National Museum.