Italian Ceramics: Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum Collections

In 1984 the Getty Museum acquired an exceptional collection
of Italian Renaissance maiolica, or tin-glazed earthenware. These often
brilliantly colored objects range from an early Florentine jar with relief-blue
decoration to a much later Mannerist dish with grotesque ornament. The
collection was the subject of Italian
Maiolica, a beautifully illustrated catalogue that the Museum published in
1988.

Italian Ceramics
amplifies and updates the earlier volume, including objects—some of them porcelain
and terracotta—acquired during the intervening years. Among them are a pair of
eighteenth-century candlesticks representing mythological scenes and a tabletop
with hunting scenes; and, from the 1790s, the beautifully modeled and painted Saint Joseph with the Christ Child.

 Italian Ceramics contains
the most recent scientific, historical, and iconographic information about the
Museum’s holdings. Completely revised and expanded, this book offers a wealth
of new information about the Getty Museum’s superb collection, which spans more
than four centuries of Italian ceramic art.