Lot 65

AN ITALIAN [GUBBIO] ISTORIATO MAIOLICA LUSTRED DISH FROM THE WORKSHOP OF MAESTRO GIORGIO ANDREOLI, EARLY 1530S

AENEAS AND ACHATES LEAVING THEIR FRIENDS TO EXPLORE THE COAST OF LIBYA

£42,500

The Contents of Lowood House

Auction: 6 October 2021 at 10:00 BST

Description

The scene is set within a landscape with classical buildings and a distant hill; the image picked out in gold and red lustre, the reverse decorated with scrolling foliage and a central fleur-de-lis within a border in red and gold lustre, on a small foot rim; the use of this particular scene is unusual.

Dimensions

26.5cm diam, 3.8cm high

Provenance

Provenance: From the collection of James Ewing (1775-1853) Strathleven House, Dunbartonshire, by descent and by inheritance to the present owners. An inventory of 1926 lists the dish along with another [also offered for sale here] as being framed in “Quaint Gilt Circular Frames” and valued at £300.

Footnote

Note: The image is after an engraving of 1516 by Giovanni Antonio da Brescia [see figure 1] of four titled scenes from Virgil’s Aeneid.[1] This engraving,[2] in turn, is a reversed copy, on a single plate, of the two side panels of Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving 'Quos Ego!' (after Raphael), a composition inspired by classical relief sculpture.[3] Various panels from this engraving were frequently used by maiolica decorators in Urbino and Gubbio but the use of this particular scene is unusual.

This dish relates to pieces that are part of a lustred and un-lustred maiolica group linked by Mallet and Wilson to the workshop of Maestro Giorgio.[4] In particular, the dish shares similarities to one decorated with an unidentified subject and dated 1524,[5] and to another un-lustred dish now in the Museo Civico Medievale, Bologna,[6] decorated as we have here with a scene from Virgil’s Aeneid, using another panel from the Raimondi “Quos Ego!” engraving. This group of maiolica attributed to the workshop of Giorgio Andreoli is inscribed with dates between 1524 and 1527.

The dating of this dish is not, however, straightforward. The lustred decoration in yellow and ruby on the reverse and its overall shape indicate that the dish is later in date and of the early 1530s.[7]

[1] Aeneid, Lib.1, 312

[2] Hind, Early Italian Engraving, G.A. da Brescia, no35, p550a

[3] Bartsch, vol XIV, p264-8, n.352, BM Reg. 1870,0625.1065

[4] Summarized by Wilson 2017, p251-253

[5] Wilson, 2018, Cat 174, p394

[6] Ravanelli Guidotti, 1985, p138, cat 104

[7] It is comparable, for example, to the reverse of a dated plate of 1534 decorated with the Birth of Aesculapius now in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen and attributed to Francesco “Urbini”. (See Wilson 2005, p15, fig. 7 and 8)

Literature :

Bartsch, Adam. Le peintre graveur, Vienna, 1808-21

Hind, Arthur M. Early Italian Engraving, part 2, vol 6, B.Quaritch Ltd, London, 1948

Ravanelli Giudotti, Carmen. Ceramiche occidentali del Museo Civico Medievale di Bologna, Bologna, 1985

Wilson, Timothy. ’Iconografia sessuale nella ceramica rinascimentale. Un intricamento tra Leonardo e Arcimboldo’, Ceramica Antica, anno 15, no2, 2005, p10-44

Wilson, Timothy. Italian Maiolica and Europe, Oxford, 2017

Wilson, Timothy. The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica, Turin, 2018

With thanks to Celia Curnow for the extensive research and footnote on this lot.

AN ITALIAN [GUBBIO] ISTORIATO MAIOLICA LUSTRED DISH FROM THE WORKSHOP OF MAESTRO GIORGIO ANDREOLI, EARLY 1530S