Art or Pornography?

A leading British museum has paid £240,000 ($387,000) for a Renaissance plate which shows a male head made up entirely of phalluses. The Italian plate is thought to have been made by ceramicist Francesco Urbini in the 16th century. It shows a head made up of around 50 fleshy penises, wrapped round each other to form a dense, knotted whole.

The head is framed by a garland carrying the inscription: "Ogni homo me guarda come fosse una testa de cazi" (Every man looks at me as if I were a dickhead). The phrase is still a common term of abuse in Italy and elsewhere. Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, which has bought the plate, describes it as "one of the most extraordinary and fascinating pieces of Italian maiolica (a style of ceramic painting) in existence." It is a rare example of bawdy Renaissance art which survived the suppression of later, more prudish, generations, it said.

A £100,000 grant towards the purchase price came from the British National Art Collections Fund, the largest it has given for a ceramic object. Further funding came from the Resource Purchase Grant Fund. David Barrie, director of the National Art Collections Fund, said: "This magnificent piece really made us sit up and take notice - we're often asked to support extraordinary things, but we'd never seen anything like this before."