Logicamente, lustre maiolica wine goblets, flasks, plates with the wine and Bacchus motif figured in my October 20, 2020 ZOOM presentation, “Italy’s Wine Mystique in History and Art.” But my “wine motif” subject was vast and the lustre ware in Umbria and the Marches truly merits exclusive attention, even – a talk on its own.
(If you missed my ZOOM talk, enjoy it now on my website – where you can also see all my other ten presentations – or on my YouTube channel)
I even neglected to include in my talk our lustre-ware treasure, an espresso coffee set made by famous Gualdo Tadino potter, Remigi, given to me years ago as a mille grazie gift from a family whose son spent a July in Wisconsin one year with a host family, (When I had my English school here years ago, I used to take fifteen of my students to the US each summer with me and our three children on my trips home).

And when you’re next in Umbria, don’t miss a visit to the small hilltown of Torgiano, just south of Perugia…..
….to stop in for a visit at the Museo del Vino..
….one of the finest private museums in Italy. Here in twenty rooms of a 17th -century palace, three thousand treasured objects (dating from the third millenium B.C.) link to the mystique of wine in art, commerce, literature, ,philosophy, myth, religion and pharmacology.
In the section, “Wine in Myth,” a Wine Museum treasure is exhibited, the 16th-c lustre plate, “The Infancy of Bacchus”:

The infant Bacchus playfully puts a grape into the mouth of old Silenus, his teacher, represented here as a satyr on the masterpiece of lustre-ware work of Maestro Giorgio Andreoli of Gubbio (1528).
The grape held by the infant Bacchus as well as the bunch of grapes and the wine pitcher gripped by the elderly Silenus are all of the stunning ruby red lustre which Andreoli had created and which exalts the scene.
The episode depicts one of the many legends regarding the childhood of Bacchus (Dionysius for the Greeks), countless in number also due to the the prolix Dionysiaca by Nonnus of Panopolis: written in the 4th B.C., this episode poem – over over twenty thousand verses – is the longest one surviving from antiquity and its principle theme is the life of Dionysius.
It seems that the god was initiated to viticulture by Silenus, the often-inebriated but wise old man, which Mastro Giorgio – in a splendid unity of attributes – overlaid with Pan in this creation of the scene.
The work bears the artist’s signature and the year 1528.
With extraordinary technical know-how and a stupendous color sense, Maestro Giorgio Andreoli had rediscovered Islamic and Mesopotamian maiolica lustre techniques, inventing his un-rivalled ruby lustre – setting it apart from the Urbino (in the Marches region) and Deruta lustre ware.
The Museo del Vino has two fine examples of Deruta lustre ware, versatori (literally, “pourers,” i.e., wine pitchers):
This delicate lustre technique was devised by Islamic potters, adopted in Spain in the late 9th century, appearing in Italy in the 10th century – but it did not become important until the 15th century.
It was applied to objects that had already been glazed and fired, and involved applying a thin layer of metallic particles that, before a second firing in a reduction kiln – creating lustrous iridescent effects of various colours, depending on the metal that was used.
Andreoli was commissioned to create numerous lustro works thanks to the marvelous sheen he achieved on them – and was given honorary Gubbio citizenship by the Duke of Urbino – and tax emption as well.
Mastro Giorgio’s lustre process was a jealously guarded secret passed on to his sons but it died out with them. Although no potter ever rivaled Maestro Giorgio, lustre continues in Umbria in the work of Gubbio potters and ceramicists of the hill town Gualdo Tadino – not far from Gubbio – as you can see in this 19th wine pitcher and wine goblet depicting la Baccanalia (ancient Rome’s orgiastic, euphoric March celebrations of Bacchus) of Alfredo Santarelli (also in Torgiano’s Wine Museum):
And after your visit to the Wine Museum, head to the nearby hilltown of Deruta, famous for its maiolica production which started there in about the 13th-century.
You’ll want to visit a family-run maiolica workshop to see all the phases of production – and then head to
the Regional Ceramics Museum of Deruta in the center of town. Opened in 1898, the oldest ceramics museum showcases ceramic masterpieces, including some
lustro gems:

More than 6000 maiolica treasures fascinate guests touring this museum, housed in the restored 14th-century convent of San Francesco:
Ready to join me?
Annie, I know (hope) you will make the ceramic talk another wonderful lecture. I’m looking forward to that one too!
With each zoom talk or blog you could set up a corresponding tour (hopefully starting 2021)
Sandi, yes, lots more to share on ceramics and SI!!! hope to have a new tour to Deruta and Torgiano