Charger Depicting a Boar Hunt (c. 1575): Art, History and Details

Charger Depicting a Boar Hunt (c. 1575) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Fontana Family (Italian).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

During the Renaissance, an understanding of classical antiquity was perceived to be a sign of social, intellectual, and economic distinction. Scenes from Greco-Roman mythology were prominently featured on maiolica, covering the surface in a style called istoriato (decorated with stories).

Object facts

• Title: Charger Depicting a Boar Hunt
• Date: c. 1575
• Creator attribution: Fontana Family (Italian)
• Culture: Italy, Urbino
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica)
• Dimensions: Diameter: 8.6 x 45.7 cm (3 3/8 x 18 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1942.623

A detail from the museum

In the centuries leading up to the Renaissance, boar hunting was an activity reserved for royalty and the aristocracy.

Collection credit

Bequest of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• John Long Severance Art Collection Photographs: Furniture, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Catalogue of the John L. Severance Collection: Bequest of John L. Severance, 1936. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1942.
• Milliken, William M., Gertrude Underhill, and Jean Mailey. “Department of Decorative Arts.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 29, no. 9 (November 1942): 137–51.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.