FOOTED CUP AND COVER

Details

ATTRIBUTED TO JEAN COURT (ACTIVE 1555-65), LIMOGES, THIRD QUARTER 16TH CENTURY
FOOTED CUP AND COVER
Parcel-gilt grisaille enamel
With a gilt-bronze pierced globe finial; cover and bowl painted with the story of Adam and Eve and their explusion from the garden of Eden, after Lucas van Leyden, the centre of the bowl with Cain and Abel; the lid inscribed 'I.C.D.V.'; the domed foot with a coat of arms of Pierre Scarron (1536-1607) seigneur de Saint-Trys, conseiller and maitre d’hôtel to Catherine de Médici and Henri IV, flanked by the initials PS

10 in. (25.4 cm.) high, overall

Provenance

Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery (1851-1890), at Mentmore Towers, by 1884, by descent to the 6th Earl of Rosebery, at Mentmore Towers, until sold,
Sotheby's, Mentmore, 20 May 1977, lot 1145.
Trajan, Paris, 17 May, 2000, lot 48.
Private collection, Paris.

Literature

Mentmore, vol. II, Edinburgh, 1884, no. 56, p. 122.

S. Caroselli, The painted Enamels of Limoges - A Catalogue of the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1993, no. 28, pp. 170-173.
S. Baratte, Les Emaux peints de Limoges, Paris, 2000.
B. Descheemaeker, Emaux de Limoges de la Renaissance provenant de la collection de M. Hubert de Givenchy, Paris, 1994, no. 24, pp. 102-105.

Brought to you by

Donald Johnston

djohnston@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2331

Lot Essay

The study of enamels attributed to Jean Court (or de Court, Courteys, Courtois, Curtius) is complicated by the fact that the enamel industry in Limoges was dominated by dynastic workshops, often with different members of the family sharing the same name. This is made more difficult by the contemporary habit of spelling names differently at different times. In her recent study of the enamels in the Louvre, Sophie Baratte divides the enamels which had previously all been attributed to the hand of one man - Jean Court - into at least two separate workshops, which are known to have employed numerous artists thought to sign their names in identical or near-identical fashion (Baratte, op. cit., pp. 317-361). The artist Jean Court or Maitre IC, responsible for the present cup and cover, which is notable for the dense nature of the composition and the technical virtuosity of the painting, is equally recognisable as the author of other major works in public collections such as three other cups and covers with similar Adam and Eve scenes; in the Louvre, in Ecouen and in Dresden (Baratte, op. cit., R 287, pp. 340-1).

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