A LARGE ISTORIATO COVERED CUP

Details

A LARGE ISTORIATO COVERED CUP
CASTELLI, MID 18TH CENTURY, WORKSHOP OF CARMINE GENTILI

Painted on a white ground in shades of yellow, blue, green, ochre and manganese, the domed cover and knop finial with flying putti holding garlands and bunches of grapes, the flaring cylingrical neck with The Prodigal Son, the body with similar putti flanking cartouches painted with masks, the flaring stem and foot with winged putti sitting on plinths in a bower of flowers, one holding a quiver of arrows, the other a shield, the underside inscribed in red with Sackler number 79.6.23A, the cover with 79.6.23b (restorations, test drill holes to flange of cover and to footrim)--23½in. (59.7cm.) high

Provenance

With Bernheimer, Munich

Exhibited

Washington, D.C., no. ?
San Francisco, CA, no. 134

Lot Essay

Cf. G. Conti, nos. 417, 419 for two covered cups similar in form and decoration but painted with different Biblical istoriato scenes.

Sold with thermoluminescence certificate 381u87 dated April 1886, from the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford University, stating that the sample tested was last fired between 200 and 310 years ago (1676.1786).