.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The illustrious Medici family produced four Popes, two of which were elected to office in the first half of the 16th century; Giovanni de' Medici, who was Pope Leo X from 1513 to 1521, and Clement VII, who was Pope from 1523 to 1534.
A Montelupo dish with the same arms (assigned to Leo X and also supported by a putto's mask) in the Ceramics Museum of Montelupo, see Fausto Berti, Il Museo della Ceramica di Montelupo, Florence, 2008, p. 304, fig. 35a. For another dish with the same arms enclosed by decoration more closely related to the present lot, see Wendy, M. Watson, Italian Renaissance Maiolica from the William A. Clarke Collection Mount Holyoke College Art Museum and The Corcoran Gallery of Art 1986-1988 Exhibition Catalogue, London, 1986, pp. 64-65, no. 21, where it is attributed as 'probably Cafaggiolo', and where the author discusses the close links between Montelupo and nearby Cafaggiolo, where the Medici family had a villa since at least 1427.
A Montelupo dish with the same arms (assigned to Leo X and also supported by a putto's mask) in the Ceramics Museum of Montelupo, see Fausto Berti, Il Museo della Ceramica di Montelupo, Florence, 2008, p. 304, fig. 35a. For another dish with the same arms enclosed by decoration more closely related to the present lot, see Wendy, M. Watson, Italian Renaissance Maiolica from the William A. Clarke Collection Mount Holyoke College Art Museum and The Corcoran Gallery of Art 1986-1988 Exhibition Catalogue, London, 1986, pp. 64-65, no. 21, where it is attributed as 'probably Cafaggiolo', and where the author discusses the close links between Montelupo and nearby Cafaggiolo, where the Medici family had a villa since at least 1427.