A look at the design, market and legacy of Victorian pottery

Sunday, July 12, 2020

Another Sad Etruscan Majolica Reproduction

I have to admit that whenever I need to report another reproduction in this blog my faith in mankind is diminished. This reproduction has been around for a while but I’ve never had the chance to examine it very closely. Now that I have I can see it’s more sorry than I ever expected.

The piece under discussion is another phony frog mug made to deceive. There are quite a few floating around in various designs but this is the only one marked with an Etruscan Majolica stamp. It is based on a genuinely old majolica mug without a frog or mark. This isn’t a piece that would fool a knowledgeable collector but it really isn’t aimed at that audience. Like most reproductions its audience is the casual buyer. The design, the glazes are so wrong for Etruscan Majolica it would fool no one but the most naive buyer but with pottery collectors becoming ever fewer since pottery's fall from designer grace, that audience is less educated than ever. 






I hope this post enlightens at least some to the awfulness of this piece.