A Sicilian maiolica albarello, second half 17th century, Caltagirone, painted with Saint Catherine flanked by wheels, crowned and holding a sword and a palm frond, within an oval ochre cartouche edged with turquoise and ochre scrolls, enclosed within a blue ground panel with Sgraffito scrolls, the reverse with a bold foliate motif, 20.5 cm highThis fine albarello is in reasonably good condition given its age. The rim is slightly misshapen, but this dates from the time of manufacture. The condition faults are listed below in detail: There is some chipping to rim; one chip has an associated crack extending down into the shoulder by approximately 4 cm. Further round the rim there is another much shorter finer crack which is very minor. There is some chipping to the foot. There is a long crack running across the underside of the foot which runs up into the lower part of each side of the albarello, where it branches slightly. In addition, there is an unglazed oval firing fault near the cartouche at 5 o’clock and there is some slight mis-firing to the ochre on the left side of the cartouche (this all dates to the time of manufacture and is very minor).