CIRCA 1580, WORKSHOP OF ORAZIO FONTANA

For an almost identical table fountain in the musée de Cluny, Paris, see Jeanne Giacomotti, Catalogue de majoliques des musées nationaux, Paris, 1974, no. 1119, also no. 1118 for a slightly variant model with a figure of Orpheus in place of the shepherd. The present shepherd is very close in facial expression, clothing, palette and painting style to a seated figure playing the lute attributed to the Pattanazi workshop. See Charles Dominique Fuchs, Maioliche Istoriate Rinascimentali del Museo Statale d'Arte Medioevale e Moderna di Arezzo, Arezzo, 1993, color plate p. 73, no. 203.

Sold with thermoluminescence certificate N100t97 from Oxford Authentication Ltd and dated 27 July 2000, stating that the sample tested was last fired between 300 and 500 years ago (1500-1700).