CIRCA 1575-85, PROBABLY PATANAZZI WORKSHOP

Details

AN URBINO LARGE FLUTED BOWL
CIRCA 1575-85, PROBABLY PATANAZZI WORKSHOP
The interior with a central medallion painted in shades of blue-ish grey with St. Luke writing his Gospel with the aid of an angel, in an interior with a book on a shelf and a vase nearby, within an ochre ropetwist roundel, the gadrooned sides and well painted with grotteschi with winged beasts and small medallions, within a lobed yellow, ochre and blue-beaded band rim, the flutes of the exterior with further grotteschi divided by blue channels edged with bands of ochre ropetwist ornament radiating from the footrim, the blue footrim enclosing a central panel of water (crack around lower part, footrim with chipping, flaking and restoration, restored crack from rim at 8 o'clock, flaking with areas of over-painting, very minor chipping to glaze)
15 in. (38 cm.) wide; 5 7/8 in. (15 cm.) high

Provenance

Reputedly Fountaine Collection, Narford Hall, Norfolk (although a corresponding description does not appear in the Christie's 16th June 1884 sale catalogue)
Guy Hannaford Collection, sale Sotheby's Florence, 17th October 1969, lot 98
Anon., sale Sotheby's London, 5th March 1985, lot 15.
(The underside with a paper label attached inscribed Ref. C.2487 Ex A. SPERO a/c Hannaford)

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

For a bowl of the same form, size and very similar decoration in the Victoria and Albert Museum, see Bernard Rackham, Catalogue of Italian Maiolica (London, 1940), Vol. II., pl. 141, no. 876. The central scene on the interior of the V&A bowl showing Caesar seated on a throne on a raised dais is derived from a drawing by or after Federico Zuccaro, published by Timothy Clifford in his article 'Some unpublished drawings for maiolica and Federigo Zuccaro's role in the Spanish Service' in Italian Renaissance Pottery, Papers written in association with a colloquium at the British Museum (London, 1991), p. 174, fig. 7. For a fluted ewer decorated with grotteschi divided by similar channelled edges, see Rackham, ibid., pl. 142, no. 879.

The origin of the central scene on the interior of this bowl is currently unknown, but the grotteschi decoration appears, in part, to have been derived from the designs in Jacques Androuet I Ducerceau's Petites Grotesques (Paris, 1562). See pp. 11 and 12 of this catalogue for Ducerceau engravings showing very similar grotesques. For other important Urbino pieces of this period decorated with grotteschi after Ducerceau's designs, see Christopher Poke, 'Jacques Androuet I Ducerceau's "Petites Grotesques" as a source for Urbino maiolica decoration' Burlington Magazine, June 2001, No. 1179, pp. 332-344.

The underside of this bowl is illustrated at the end of the catalogue.

More from Italian Ceramic Art 1400-1900

View All