Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/55

Rh executed, reproducing for ever the same figures, the same draperies, and the same accessories. The colouring was, besides, entirely destitute of beauty, and every part was executed with a laboured difficulty which deprived it of all grace; wherefore, the work being finished, was found to give but little satisfaction to the Duke Guidobaldo, nor did it in any wise content Bartolommeo Genga, or the other artists who had expected great things from this man, and the rather as he had shown them a most beautiful design in the beginning, for which cause they had been looking for a painting of equal excellence.

It may indeed be afiSrmed with truth that for preparing a beautiful design Battista had no equal, and might be therein considered an accomplished man. Remarking that this was the case, Duke Guidobaldo thought the designs of Battista might probably be used with good effect by those who were then so admirably working in vases and other pottery at Castel Durante, and where prints from the designs of Baffaello da Urbino, and other able artists, had been copied Avith the most perfect success; he therefore caused Battista to prepare a large number of designs, and these being used for that kind of clay or china work, which is of better appearance than anything of the sort elsewhere made in all Italy, turned out to be of admirable excellence. Great numbers of vases were accordingly prepared, and of such sorts as might be suitable for the credenza or beaufet of a royal house, nor could the pictures executed thereon have been more effective or of better workmanship had they been painted in oil by the best masters.

Of these vases therefore, which, as respects the quality of the clay, do greatly resemble those anciently made in Arezzo, at the time of Porsenna, king of Tuscany that is to say; the