Fragile Masterpieces: Ceramics in the Renaissance Pharmacy

The proposed public exhibition and event series will be held at the Pharmacy Museum Basel. The project’s goal is to showcase the science behind the production of the pharmacy containers and the technical mastery that went into their most immediately significant component, namely its glazed surface. Through physical analysis of all the early modern albarelli in the collection of the Pharmacy Museum, and by investigating selected jars using non-invasive XRF spectroscopy, the exhibition will highlight their innovative and experimental making as a key factor in the dissemination of pharmaceutical practice and knowledge. To that end, the exhibition will discuss in detail the elemental composition of the glazed surfaces, such as the metal oxides or tin, which travelled from locations including the Erzgebirge region and Cornwall to ceramic workshops on the Italian Peninsula. Jars produced in those workshops entered pharmacies across Southern and Central Europe and beyond, and their physical and visual properties structured the experience of the early modern pharmacists and their clients. This exhibition builds directly on 'Artistic Failures in Renaissance Ceramic Workshops' research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Ambizione Funding Scheme), led by Dr. Zuzanna Sarnecka. By translating the findings into formats more accessible to wider public audiences, creating tangible links between cutting-edge research and museum engagement, it emphasizes artists’ innovation and creativity as fundamental to the claim of authority ostensibly embedded in these containers. By connecting scientific and artistic practices of the past to the global realities of the present, the exhibition will support interdisciplinary, object-based learning and encourage new conversations around creativity, risk, and cultural exchange. With the inclusion of hands-on clay workshops, it destabilizes the expected relationship between museum and museum-goer – one in which tactile engagement with objects is prohibited – and instead encourages participants to roll up their sleeves and creatively translate their personal knowledge and aesthetics into and onto a historical vessel of pharmaceutical authority.