Luca della Robbia: Tin-Glazed Terracotta

 

"La Vierge a L'Enfant avec Trois
Cherubim" by Andrea della Robbia

"When Luca della Robbia thought about what he received for his work and the time he had expended in its production, he perceived that he had made but small gains, and that the labour had been excessive. He determined, therefore, to abandon marble and bronze, seeing if he could not derive a more profitable return from some other source. Wherefore, reflecting that it cost but little trouble to work in clay and that only one thing was required, namely, to find some method by which the work produced in that material should be rendered durable, he set out to discover the means by which to do that.

Luca found that if he covered his figures with a coating of glaze, formed from the mixture of tin, litharge, antimony, and other minerals and mixtures, carefully prepared by the action of fire in a furnace made for the purpose, the desired effect was produced to perfection. For this process [tin-glazed terracotta], then, Luca, as being its inventor, received the highest praise, and indeed, all future ages will be indebted to him for the same. Then he added the further invention of giving this type of work color, to the astonishment and delight of all who beheld them. 

Among the first who gave Luca commissions to execute works of this description, was the magnificent Piero di Cosimo de' Medici, who caused him to decorate a small study in his palace. The ceiling of the study is a half circle; and here, as well as for the pavement, Luca executed various devices. The fame of these works having spread, not only throughout Italy, but over all Europe, there were so many persons desirous of possessing them, that the Florentine merchants kept Luca continually at this labour, to his great profit. They then dispatched the products all over the world.

And now the master himself could no longer supply the numbers required. He therefore took his brothers, Ottaviano and Agostino from the chisel, and set them to these works, from which both he and they gained much more than they had previously been able to earn by their works in sculpture."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Lives of Seventy of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects" by Georgio Vasari.)

*Litharge: lead monoxide, especially a red form used as a pigment and in glass and ceramics