The Museum for the “maiolica artisans” - founded in 1898 by the Deruta Municipality – is the root of the new Museum located in the ancient convent of St. Francesco since 1998. All the collections, 6.000 works, are exhibited in a visit tour, designed and curated by Giancarlo Bojani and Giulio Busti in a chronological development from archaic majolica until contemporary one with some thematic sections dedicated to the Renaissance tiles and pharmacy objects. The Museum documents, above all, Deruta production in the XV and XVI century.

In the Renaissance artistic context with an important of iconographic references we can find the aims of an industrial and artistic museum with a specific section dedicated to the techniques such as lusterware, an ancient ceramic technique that made Deruta famous all over the world with a lot of artwork exhibited in more than 1000 International museums.

An important section is characterized by the contemporary collection of the Museum with multiples or one pieces of famous artists; all these artworks well document the history of ceramic art from the second half of the XX century until nowadays. The visit tour allows to visit the big storage in a dedicated structure in which we can see Deruta artworks from archaic period until XX century, a collection of Apulian ceramics (ex Magnini Collection), a contemporary part coming from the Premio Deruta ( 1954 -1972) and other events.

The archaeological investigation, completed in 2010, revealed a series of structures dating from the late 1200s to the early 1700s and it has allowed the find of a large number of ceramic pieces, including majolica objects, graffito slipware and glazed earthenware. All this well documents the 50 kilns active in XVI century, now included in the visit tour.

The scientific production of the Museum includes 3 catalogues of the museum collections in the book series of the Cultural Heritage of Umbria Region and 7 books edited for temporary exhibition, promoted by the Deruta Municipality.

The Conservator of the Museum, Prof. Giulio Busti

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