Lot Essay
Cf. Jörg Rasmussen, Italienische Majolika, no. 122 for a similar treatment of this subject taken from a woodcut illustration for Ovid's Metamorphoses published in Venice in 1497. Another version of this subject, viewed from a different angle but also from the workshop of Nicola da Urbino, appears on a dish formerly in the Scott-Taggart Collection, sold in these Rooms, 14 April 1980, lot 19
The figure of Paris is derived from a warrior in a drawing by Raphael in the Ashmolean Museum (K.T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Volume II, Italian Schools, Oxford, 1956, no. 538 verso). This type of borrowing is virtually unparalleled and, since the Ashmolean sheet has a Viti-Antaldi provenance, it may well have been one of the group of Raphael drawings that Timoteo Viti is presumed to have taken back to Urbino in 1515. This in turn would explain its availability to the workshop of Nicola da Urbino.
The figure of Paris is derived from a warrior in a drawing by Raphael in the Ashmolean Museum (K.T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Volume II, Italian Schools, Oxford, 1956, no. 538 verso). This type of borrowing is virtually unparalleled and, since the Ashmolean sheet has a Viti-Antaldi provenance, it may well have been one of the group of Raphael drawings that Timoteo Viti is presumed to have taken back to Urbino in 1515. This in turn would explain its availability to the workshop of Nicola da Urbino.