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Lot Essay
RECENT SCHOLARSHIP
The maker and origin of the Aldobrandini Tazze have prompted tremendous speculation over the last two hundred years, with hypotheses ranging from a nineteenth-century attribution to the celebrated Florentine goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini, to beliefs in a German, French, and, most recently, Flemish origin. The wide range of attributions have made the tazze difficult to track over the centuries, with the one unerring consistency being the identification of the standing figures, and the universal appreciation of the extraordinarily well-chased narrative scenes on the dishes. Although we will likely never know the identity of the goldsmith and workshops responsible for the design and execution of the Aldobrandini Tazze, recent groundbreaking scholarship coordinated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a subsequently published collection of essays on the tazze (Siemon, 2017), presents a revised and compelling argument about their region of origin, a more precise date of creation and a strong case for the client for whom they were commissioned.
A recently discovered letter, dated 16 March 1599, provides the earliest known documentation of the Aldobrandini Tazze. In this letter, discovered by Antonella Fabriani Rojas, the Milanese goldsmith and art dealer David de’ Cervi (1532-1626) writes to Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, that six of the twelve tazze were present in Milan and enticingly reports that they were available for acquisition. Additionally, he notes that one of tazze had been previously viewed in Ferrara by Count Julio Caffini. The Duke, however, is not known to have purchased the six tazze, which are next recorded in the possession of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew of Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini, instead. It appears that the Cardinal Aldobrandini’s acquisition of the six tazze reunited the set of twelve: his accounts record a payment for in March 1602 for a group of six, but his inventory of plate, taken the next years, records all that twelve tazze were in his possession (ibid., p. 78).
This important turn-of-the-century documentation has provided scholars a framework from which to work backwards, connecting the tazze with significant events and personages of the late sixteenth century, with perhaps the greatest clue to their early ownership being the record of the tazza in Ferrara in late 1598-early 1599. Ferrara had seen great excitement and political significance in those months as the site of a royal double wedding ceremony held 13 November 1598, in which the newly-crowned Phillip III (1578-1621), King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia married his cousin, Archduchess Margaret of Austria (1584-1611), and his sister, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566-1633), wed another of their cousins, Archduke Albert VII of Austria (1559-1621), himself a son of Maximillian II, Holy Roman Emperor (1527-1576) and Maria of Spain (1528-1603). As the siblings and their betrothed all hailed from ruling Habsburg dynasties, their double wedding celebration held enormous important, and would have been attended by the most prominent noble families throughout Europe. Indeed, in September 1598, when the Archduke set out for the festivities from Brussels, where he served as governor-general, he was accompanied by an estimated 2,000 persons and 1,000 horses, a party which only grew in size and magnificence along his journey. By the by the time he reached Ferrara on 13 November, his entourage had ballooned to some 7,000 Habsburg guests.
The wedding ceremony was presided over by Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini, while Cardinal Aldobrandini, who owned the tazze by 1603, hosted the massive party held by Archduke Albert. To appropriately accommodate the great number of distinguished revelers, Aldobrandini amassed an enormous quantity of plate, largely through rental. The incredible demand for plate is recorded in the early fall of 1598, when the Duke of Mantua attempted to procure plate for his own celebrations and his agent reported that the upcoming celebrations in Ferrara had made it an impossible task. The agent, replying to the Duke, noted that his request had come “too late… because the illustrious Cardinal [Pietro] Aldobrandini… has rented all the silver belonging to the Venetian nobility to the extent of some three thousand pieces.”
The plate rented for the Habsburg wedding in November would have been used for elaborate displays and banquets during the festivities, and would have been displayed alongside not only the Cardinal Aldobrandini’s own extensive collection, but also together with fine silver brought to Ferrara by his illustrious guests. Six of the tazze are engraved on the underside of the dishes with the Cardinal’s coat-of-arms, suggesting that these six may have been presented to the Cardinal by a noble guest, as a gift of gratitude for his hospitality during the celebrations. This hypothesis aligns with the documented Ferrara provenance, and would explain how the Cardinal was already in possession of six tazze when he purchased the other group of six in 1602.
Following the festivities in Ferrara, the great wedding party continued its tour of Northern Italy, proceeding to Mantua and then to Milan, where the revelers stayed for two months before finally departing in early February 1599. De’ Cervi’s letter to the Duke of Mantua, documenting the six tazze available for purchase in Milan, is dated only a month later. Although it is not known why these six were on the market in Milan, one hypothesis proposes that they could have been given to a Milanese host who promptly wished to sell them. Another possibility holds that the same noble who gifted six tazze to Cardinal Aldobrandini kept the remaining six, only to offer them for sale in Milan to recoup the cost of the extraordinarily expensive wedding expedition. If the latter proposition is correct, it would explain why six of the twelve tazze lack engraved arms, as they were never intended to be gifted to any specific personage.
As scholars have closed in on the whereabouts of the twelve tazze between 1598-1603 and the historical figures in proximity to them, the circle of possible owners before Cardinal Aldobrandini also tightens, with the Ferrara bridegroom himself, Archduke Albert of Austria, emerging as the mostly likely personage to have brought them to Italy. In early 1596, Albert had relocated to the Habsburg Netherlands to assume the office of governor-general, receiving his appointment from his uncle, Phillip II of Austria, and succeeding his older brother, Archduke Ernest (1553-1595), who had served from January 1594 until his death in February 1595. Ernest’s arrivals to Brussels and then to Antwerp were celebrated with the centuries-old Flemish custom known as the Joyous Entry, a festival comprising a series of feasts, jousts, pageants and elaborate public decorations, all imbued with an optimistic civic symbolism appealing to the new governor’s benevolence. Funded by the municipality and organized by the city council, the Joyous Entry celebrations intended to create “a dialogue between the prince and his subjects, who paid homage but respectfully reminded him of the virtues he should cultivate and the liberties of his subjects that he should respect.”
The presentation of elaborate gifts to the new governor was an indispensable custom of the Joyous Entry festivities. These gifts encompassed a variety of the arts, often including bronzes, tapestries and paintings. Ernest of Austria, during his brief tenure as governor is known to have received from the Antwerp civic council many works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Plate played an important role among the civic gifts. It was customary for each city to present an appropriate gift of fine objects in the precious material to the new ruler and his party, and records indicate that in the summer of 1594, the city of Antwerp paid 1,329 guilders and 7 stuiverse to the silversmith Artus de Raiser in exchange for a variety of silver works to be serve as gifts to members of Ernest’s entourage. Ernest himself was a renowned collector of precious objects and pictures, and the suite of twelve exquisitely chased tazze would have been a much-appreciated gift, appropriate for the occasion of his new appointment. Such an origin would be further reinforced by the iconography of the twelve tazze; if they were indeed a gift to the Archduke upon his Joyous Entry, then the flattering and optimistic tenor of the narrative scenes chased on their dishes, which altogether present a virtuous, noble and benevolent picture of the Twelve Caesars, would align perfectly with the intended political messaging of the Joyous Entry (ibid., pp. 88-93).
ICONOGRAPHY
While the iconography of the Aldobrandini tazze has been the focus of intense study for centuries, the recent proposal that they were created for Ernest of Austria allows a new reading of the narrative scenes on the dishes, through a more methodical lens than has previously been possible. Each tazza is composed of a detachable fully-modeled figure of one of the Twelve Caesars—the group comprising Julius Caesar and Rome’s first eleven emperors—presiding over a broad circular dish, masterfully chased with four dense narrative scenes spaced by pilasters. Each figure and dish is raised on a knopped stem and domed circular foot; six tazze, including the Zilkha Collection’s Nero-Augustus tazza, retain their original feet chased with lobes. The other six tazze stand on feet decorated with masks and flowers, which were commissioned as replacements in the late nineteenth century by the Paris-based art dealer, Frédéric Spitzer (1815-1890), possibly from silversmith Reinhold Vasters (1827-1909) (see E. Alcorn & T. Schroder, “The Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century History of the Tazze,” The Silver Caesars, A Renaissance Mystery, New York, 2017, pp. 153-154).
The scenes chased on the dishes are derived from the writings of the first-century Roman historian, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. AD 69-after AD 122), and together span 150 years of Roman history. The four vignettes to each dish depict favorable events—valorous military victories, acts of benevolence and generosity, and scenes of dynastic succession—illustrating the life of the Caesar standing above. From the ruler’s position, he is the only observer with an unobstructed view of each the glories commemorating his life. As spectators, we must detach the central figure to adequately read the scenes portrayed on the dishes. While each figure is identified by his name engraved on the pedestal at his feet, the scenes on the dishes are not identified, undoubtedly leading to confusion over the years. The tazze have thus been, at one time (or many times), taken apart and reassembled with the Caesars and their dishes incorrectly matched. Today, only the Julius Caesar and Claudius figures are correctly paired with their original dishes.
Weighing nearly 1,200 oz. combined, the twelve Aldobrandini tazze would have constituted an the extraordinarily expensive commission, and could only have been intended for a recipient of great importance and rank. The grandeur of the suite, coupled with the themes of virtuous governance pervasive throughout the chased scenes, suggest that their original owner must have held both not only wealth, but also power and authority. The theory that the Aldobrandini Tazze were commissioned for a member of the Habsburg bloodline is strengthened by the dynasty’s fondness for portraying themselves as Roman emperors, employing ancient poses, iconography and even costume. Depicting themselves as emperors served to reinforce their authority not only by evoking the esteemed ancient empire, but also by touting the strength of their lineage, which they traced back to their Roman ancestors.
Direct comparisons are possible between depictions of individual Habsburg rulers and the modeling of the Caesars on the Aldobrandini Tazze. Illustrations of statues of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558) and King Phillip II of Spain (1527-1598) by Taddeo Landini, 1589, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, show the father and son in ancient Roman attire and contrapposto similar to the representations of the Vespasian and Vitellius figures of the tazze. Further links between the Habsburg dynasty and the iconography of the tazze can be found in contemporary medals. The fourth scene of the Otho dish, featuring a Praetorian army camp of tents, is nearly identical to the reverse of a 1586 medal struck for Ernest’s brother, Maximillian III of Austria (1558-1618), preserved today in the collection of the Bode-Museum, Berlin.
The third scene to the present tazza, depicting Augustus closing the door to the Temple of Janus Quirinus, is known to have a preexisting Habsburg association. The scene derives from an episode in chapter 22 of Suetonius’ Life of Augustus, in which Augustus’ closing of the door signifies that “peace had been established on land and sea.” This motif, uniting the ruler with the virtue of peace, had appeared decades earlier in a 1559 portrait medal commemorating Ernest’s uncle, and father to Phillip III and the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, King Phillip II (1527-1598). The 1559 medal is stamped with an image of Phillip II, modeled as Augustus, himself closing the door to the temple, therefore establishing peace. Julia Siemon asserts that the connection between the scenes selected for the medals and later echoed on the tazze is likely not coincidental, writing that it “supports the idea that the tazze—whatever their origin—were designed with Habsburg iconography in mind” (Siemon, 2017, pp. 79-88).
The maker and origin of the Aldobrandini Tazze have prompted tremendous speculation over the last two hundred years, with hypotheses ranging from a nineteenth-century attribution to the celebrated Florentine goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini, to beliefs in a German, French, and, most recently, Flemish origin. The wide range of attributions have made the tazze difficult to track over the centuries, with the one unerring consistency being the identification of the standing figures, and the universal appreciation of the extraordinarily well-chased narrative scenes on the dishes. Although we will likely never know the identity of the goldsmith and workshops responsible for the design and execution of the Aldobrandini Tazze, recent groundbreaking scholarship coordinated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a subsequently published collection of essays on the tazze (Siemon, 2017), presents a revised and compelling argument about their region of origin, a more precise date of creation and a strong case for the client for whom they were commissioned.
A recently discovered letter, dated 16 March 1599, provides the earliest known documentation of the Aldobrandini Tazze. In this letter, discovered by Antonella Fabriani Rojas, the Milanese goldsmith and art dealer David de’ Cervi (1532-1626) writes to Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, that six of the twelve tazze were present in Milan and enticingly reports that they were available for acquisition. Additionally, he notes that one of tazze had been previously viewed in Ferrara by Count Julio Caffini. The Duke, however, is not known to have purchased the six tazze, which are next recorded in the possession of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew of Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini, instead. It appears that the Cardinal Aldobrandini’s acquisition of the six tazze reunited the set of twelve: his accounts record a payment for in March 1602 for a group of six, but his inventory of plate, taken the next years, records all that twelve tazze were in his possession (ibid., p. 78).
This important turn-of-the-century documentation has provided scholars a framework from which to work backwards, connecting the tazze with significant events and personages of the late sixteenth century, with perhaps the greatest clue to their early ownership being the record of the tazza in Ferrara in late 1598-early 1599. Ferrara had seen great excitement and political significance in those months as the site of a royal double wedding ceremony held 13 November 1598, in which the newly-crowned Phillip III (1578-1621), King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia married his cousin, Archduchess Margaret of Austria (1584-1611), and his sister, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566-1633), wed another of their cousins, Archduke Albert VII of Austria (1559-1621), himself a son of Maximillian II, Holy Roman Emperor (1527-1576) and Maria of Spain (1528-1603). As the siblings and their betrothed all hailed from ruling Habsburg dynasties, their double wedding celebration held enormous important, and would have been attended by the most prominent noble families throughout Europe. Indeed, in September 1598, when the Archduke set out for the festivities from Brussels, where he served as governor-general, he was accompanied by an estimated 2,000 persons and 1,000 horses, a party which only grew in size and magnificence along his journey. By the by the time he reached Ferrara on 13 November, his entourage had ballooned to some 7,000 Habsburg guests.
The wedding ceremony was presided over by Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini, while Cardinal Aldobrandini, who owned the tazze by 1603, hosted the massive party held by Archduke Albert. To appropriately accommodate the great number of distinguished revelers, Aldobrandini amassed an enormous quantity of plate, largely through rental. The incredible demand for plate is recorded in the early fall of 1598, when the Duke of Mantua attempted to procure plate for his own celebrations and his agent reported that the upcoming celebrations in Ferrara had made it an impossible task. The agent, replying to the Duke, noted that his request had come “too late… because the illustrious Cardinal [Pietro] Aldobrandini… has rented all the silver belonging to the Venetian nobility to the extent of some three thousand pieces.”
The plate rented for the Habsburg wedding in November would have been used for elaborate displays and banquets during the festivities, and would have been displayed alongside not only the Cardinal Aldobrandini’s own extensive collection, but also together with fine silver brought to Ferrara by his illustrious guests. Six of the tazze are engraved on the underside of the dishes with the Cardinal’s coat-of-arms, suggesting that these six may have been presented to the Cardinal by a noble guest, as a gift of gratitude for his hospitality during the celebrations. This hypothesis aligns with the documented Ferrara provenance, and would explain how the Cardinal was already in possession of six tazze when he purchased the other group of six in 1602.
Following the festivities in Ferrara, the great wedding party continued its tour of Northern Italy, proceeding to Mantua and then to Milan, where the revelers stayed for two months before finally departing in early February 1599. De’ Cervi’s letter to the Duke of Mantua, documenting the six tazze available for purchase in Milan, is dated only a month later. Although it is not known why these six were on the market in Milan, one hypothesis proposes that they could have been given to a Milanese host who promptly wished to sell them. Another possibility holds that the same noble who gifted six tazze to Cardinal Aldobrandini kept the remaining six, only to offer them for sale in Milan to recoup the cost of the extraordinarily expensive wedding expedition. If the latter proposition is correct, it would explain why six of the twelve tazze lack engraved arms, as they were never intended to be gifted to any specific personage.
As scholars have closed in on the whereabouts of the twelve tazze between 1598-1603 and the historical figures in proximity to them, the circle of possible owners before Cardinal Aldobrandini also tightens, with the Ferrara bridegroom himself, Archduke Albert of Austria, emerging as the mostly likely personage to have brought them to Italy. In early 1596, Albert had relocated to the Habsburg Netherlands to assume the office of governor-general, receiving his appointment from his uncle, Phillip II of Austria, and succeeding his older brother, Archduke Ernest (1553-1595), who had served from January 1594 until his death in February 1595. Ernest’s arrivals to Brussels and then to Antwerp were celebrated with the centuries-old Flemish custom known as the Joyous Entry, a festival comprising a series of feasts, jousts, pageants and elaborate public decorations, all imbued with an optimistic civic symbolism appealing to the new governor’s benevolence. Funded by the municipality and organized by the city council, the Joyous Entry celebrations intended to create “a dialogue between the prince and his subjects, who paid homage but respectfully reminded him of the virtues he should cultivate and the liberties of his subjects that he should respect.”
The presentation of elaborate gifts to the new governor was an indispensable custom of the Joyous Entry festivities. These gifts encompassed a variety of the arts, often including bronzes, tapestries and paintings. Ernest of Austria, during his brief tenure as governor is known to have received from the Antwerp civic council many works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Plate played an important role among the civic gifts. It was customary for each city to present an appropriate gift of fine objects in the precious material to the new ruler and his party, and records indicate that in the summer of 1594, the city of Antwerp paid 1,329 guilders and 7 stuiverse to the silversmith Artus de Raiser in exchange for a variety of silver works to be serve as gifts to members of Ernest’s entourage. Ernest himself was a renowned collector of precious objects and pictures, and the suite of twelve exquisitely chased tazze would have been a much-appreciated gift, appropriate for the occasion of his new appointment. Such an origin would be further reinforced by the iconography of the twelve tazze; if they were indeed a gift to the Archduke upon his Joyous Entry, then the flattering and optimistic tenor of the narrative scenes chased on their dishes, which altogether present a virtuous, noble and benevolent picture of the Twelve Caesars, would align perfectly with the intended political messaging of the Joyous Entry (ibid., pp. 88-93).
ICONOGRAPHY
While the iconography of the Aldobrandini tazze has been the focus of intense study for centuries, the recent proposal that they were created for Ernest of Austria allows a new reading of the narrative scenes on the dishes, through a more methodical lens than has previously been possible. Each tazza is composed of a detachable fully-modeled figure of one of the Twelve Caesars—the group comprising Julius Caesar and Rome’s first eleven emperors—presiding over a broad circular dish, masterfully chased with four dense narrative scenes spaced by pilasters. Each figure and dish is raised on a knopped stem and domed circular foot; six tazze, including the Zilkha Collection’s Nero-Augustus tazza, retain their original feet chased with lobes. The other six tazze stand on feet decorated with masks and flowers, which were commissioned as replacements in the late nineteenth century by the Paris-based art dealer, Frédéric Spitzer (1815-1890), possibly from silversmith Reinhold Vasters (1827-1909) (see E. Alcorn & T. Schroder, “The Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century History of the Tazze,” The Silver Caesars, A Renaissance Mystery, New York, 2017, pp. 153-154).
The scenes chased on the dishes are derived from the writings of the first-century Roman historian, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. AD 69-after AD 122), and together span 150 years of Roman history. The four vignettes to each dish depict favorable events—valorous military victories, acts of benevolence and generosity, and scenes of dynastic succession—illustrating the life of the Caesar standing above. From the ruler’s position, he is the only observer with an unobstructed view of each the glories commemorating his life. As spectators, we must detach the central figure to adequately read the scenes portrayed on the dishes. While each figure is identified by his name engraved on the pedestal at his feet, the scenes on the dishes are not identified, undoubtedly leading to confusion over the years. The tazze have thus been, at one time (or many times), taken apart and reassembled with the Caesars and their dishes incorrectly matched. Today, only the Julius Caesar and Claudius figures are correctly paired with their original dishes.
Weighing nearly 1,200 oz. combined, the twelve Aldobrandini tazze would have constituted an the extraordinarily expensive commission, and could only have been intended for a recipient of great importance and rank. The grandeur of the suite, coupled with the themes of virtuous governance pervasive throughout the chased scenes, suggest that their original owner must have held both not only wealth, but also power and authority. The theory that the Aldobrandini Tazze were commissioned for a member of the Habsburg bloodline is strengthened by the dynasty’s fondness for portraying themselves as Roman emperors, employing ancient poses, iconography and even costume. Depicting themselves as emperors served to reinforce their authority not only by evoking the esteemed ancient empire, but also by touting the strength of their lineage, which they traced back to their Roman ancestors.
Direct comparisons are possible between depictions of individual Habsburg rulers and the modeling of the Caesars on the Aldobrandini Tazze. Illustrations of statues of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558) and King Phillip II of Spain (1527-1598) by Taddeo Landini, 1589, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, show the father and son in ancient Roman attire and contrapposto similar to the representations of the Vespasian and Vitellius figures of the tazze. Further links between the Habsburg dynasty and the iconography of the tazze can be found in contemporary medals. The fourth scene of the Otho dish, featuring a Praetorian army camp of tents, is nearly identical to the reverse of a 1586 medal struck for Ernest’s brother, Maximillian III of Austria (1558-1618), preserved today in the collection of the Bode-Museum, Berlin.
The third scene to the present tazza, depicting Augustus closing the door to the Temple of Janus Quirinus, is known to have a preexisting Habsburg association. The scene derives from an episode in chapter 22 of Suetonius’ Life of Augustus, in which Augustus’ closing of the door signifies that “peace had been established on land and sea.” This motif, uniting the ruler with the virtue of peace, had appeared decades earlier in a 1559 portrait medal commemorating Ernest’s uncle, and father to Phillip III and the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, King Phillip II (1527-1598). The 1559 medal is stamped with an image of Phillip II, modeled as Augustus, himself closing the door to the temple, therefore establishing peace. Julia Siemon asserts that the connection between the scenes selected for the medals and later echoed on the tazze is likely not coincidental, writing that it “supports the idea that the tazze—whatever their origin—were designed with Habsburg iconography in mind” (Siemon, 2017, pp. 79-88).