AN ISTORIATO CRESPINA

Details

AN ISTORIATO CRESPINA
CASTEL DURANTE, CIRCA 1550, WORKSHOP OF ANDREA DA NEGROPONTE

The fluted tazza moulded with a central boss, painted in blue, green, ochre and manganese with Judith placing the head of Holophernes in a bag held by her maid, the sloping sides with arched panels of rampant lions and putti holding flames outlined with laurel branches, winged masks peering over the rim between each arch, the flutes outlined in blue on the underside and inscribed in red with Sackler number 82.3.6 (minor rim and footrim chips restored, test drill holes in footrim filled)--9¾in. (24.7cm.) diam.

Provenance

With Alfred Spero, London
With Cyril Humphris, London

Exhibited

Washington, D.C., no. ?
San Francisco, CA, no. 65

Lot Essay

A similar dish in the collection of the British Museum is illustrated by Timothy Wilson, Catalogue, no. 89. The attribution of this class of ware to Andrea da Negroponte is based on a dish in Arezzo which is so signed. However, as Mr. Wilson points out loc. cit., since to date there is no archival evidence of such a potter in Castel Durante, the name may be that of a patron and not of a painter.

Sold with thermoluminescence certificate 381s30 dated January 1986 from the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford University, that the sample tested was last fired between 340 ands 520 years ago (1466-1646).