CIRCA 1570-80, A MARK BELOW HANDLE

A large boccale of similar form decorated with cornucopias flanking the Pucci arms is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and is illustrated by Jörg Rasmussen, Italian Majolica in the Robert Lehman Collection, New York, 1989, pp. 26-28, no. 16, where he notes that an excavated ewer of similar type, published by Berti, was dated 1570-80; see Fausto Berti, La maiolica di Montelupo: Secoli XIV-XVIII, Milan, p. 133. An earlier ewer dated 1544 with related cornucopia decoration and with LA below the handle is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, see Bernard Rackham, Catalogue of Italian Maiolica, Victoria and Albert Museum Catalogue, London, 1940, Vol. II, pl. 56, no. 343. Silvia Alunno, in E.A. Sannipoli et al., ibid., 2010, p. 306, suggests that the scene could be emblematic of fidelity.