In 1879 art critic and collector James Jackson Jarves drew attention in The New York Times to a new Florentine factory run by Ulisse Cantagalli, dedicated to reproducing decorative majolica (tin-glazed) objects following 15th and 16th-century Italian models. Jarves wrote, “were it not for the invariable factory mark of a cock, which all of his pieces bear, they might be readily sold … to amateurs as genuine Italian majolica …three and four centuries old.” Through his close friendship with William De Morgan, whose lustre glazed bowl is also on view in this gallery, Cantagalli had an enormous following in England and the United States.