AN ITALIAN MAIOLICA ISTORIATO CHARGER (PIATTO DA POMPA)

CIRCA 1550-60, DUCHY OR URBINO OR POSSIBLY FAENZA, WORKSHOP OF VIRGILIOTTO CALAMELLI, THE REVERSE INSCRIBED LI CENDIO DI TROIA IN BLUE

Details

AN ITALIAN MAIOLICA ISTORIATO CHARGER (PIATTO DA POMPA)
CIRCA 1550-60, DUCHY OR URBINO OR POSSIBLY FAENZA, WORKSHOP OF VIRGILIOTTO CALAMELLI, THE REVERSE INSCRIBED Li cendio di Troia IN BLUE
Painted with the fall and burning of Troy, with the Greek soldiers on the left disembarking from boats, two soldiers on horseback, others storming the gate with soldiers killing Trojans nearby, the city burning behind them, with Aeneas to the right carrying Ascanius, Anchises holding a devotional statue of Venus, billowing smoke above shrouding Creusa seated next to Cupid, within a dark-blue line and yellow band rim (broken between 2 and 5 o'clock and repaired, border broken between 6 and 8 o'clock and repaired, associated overpainting, small restored rim chip at 12 o'clock, slight chipping to rim)
18¼ in. (46.3 cm.) diam.

Provenance

Stanley J. Mortimer Collection, Connecticut, U.S.A., sale Christie's, London, 16th June 1969, lot 166.

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Dominic Simpson

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Lot Essay

The scene is derived from 'The Fall of Troy and the Escape of Aeneas' engraved by Giorgio Ghisi (1520-1582), circa 1540-50, after Giovanni Battista Ghisi (1503-1575). The print is illustrated on p. 67.

For a group of pieces in Brunswick attributed to the workshop of Virgiliotto Calamelli, see Johanna Lessmann, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig, Italienische Majolika, Katalog der Sammlung, Brunswick, 1979, pp. 106-115, nos. 32 and 38 in particular. For a discussion of the plate in the British Museum (by a different hand from the present lot) attributed to the same workshop, see D. Thornton and T. Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London, 2009, Vol. I, pp. 166-168, no. 107.

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