AN URBINO ISTORIATO DATED DISH painted in the workshop of Francesco Xanto Avelli da Rovigo with Europa and the Bull, Europa and her companion standing beside a tree and pointing towards a herd of three bulls including a fine seated white bull, in the distance Europa astride the bull being carried off across a lake, flanked by buildings and trees within a yellow line rim (rim flaking), the underside centrally inscribed in blue De gioue ede europa Ne· iii. libro et Louidia. M: in urbino, 1533

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

Details

AN URBINO ISTORIATO DATED DISH painted in the workshop of Francesco Xanto Avelli da Rovigo with Europa and the Bull, Europa and her companion standing beside a tree and pointing towards a herd of three bulls including a fine seated white bull, in the distance Europa astride the bull being carried off across a lake, flanked by buildings and trees within a yellow line rim (rim flaking), the underside centrally inscribed in blue De gioue ede europa Ne· iii. libro et Louidia. M: in urbino, 1533
26.5cm. diam.

Lot Essay

For other pieces by this hand, also dated 1533, see Ballardini, Corpus, II, figs. 101-103 and figs. 148, 149 and pl. IX for examples dated 1534. The other example with this subject (Ballardini fig. 103) is in the Walters Art Gallery and illustrated by Joan Prentice von Erdberg and Marvin C. Ross, Catalogue of the Italian Majolica in the Walters Art Gallery (1952), no. 54.

The calligraphy on these pieces shows a marked similarity to four pieces made at Rimini and dated 1535 (Ballardini, II, figs 173-176) and the Bologna jug (Ballardini, II, fig. 177) inscribed with the name Giulio da Urbino, although Rackham, op. cit., p. 309 considered them to be the work of two artists

More from British & Continental Ceramics

View All