拍品专文
The scene of the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus is after an engraving by Cornelis Cort (1533 - 1578) of 1576, a dutch artist who moved to Italy and died in Rome. The engraving in turn is after a washed pencil drawing by the artist Giorgio-Giulio Clovio who also died in Rome in the same year. This drawing is now in the collection of the British Museum, London.
Manfred Sellink, Cornelis Cort, Constich Plaedt-snijder van Horne in Hollandt, exhibition catalogue, Boymans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, 13 March - 1 May 1994, no. 58. Op. cit. : As described in Acts 9:1-19, Paul (whose name prior to his conversion is Saul) is a high-ranking official who actively participates in the persecution of Jesus' disciples. While he is accompanying a convoy of soldiers on the road to Damascus, a blinding light appears on the horizon. Paul falls to earth, blinded, and Jesus speaks to him from the heavens. For three days he cannot see until the devout Ananias miraculously cures him. Henceforth Paul is a religious zealot, who eventually dies a martyr's death in Rome.
Ter Molen dates this plaque circa 1613.
He bases this date on the fact that the plaque shows stylistically a similarity with a dated tazza dish representing a scene of Jupiter and Io after the Metamorphoses of Ovidius.(op. cit. Ter Molen nos. 432 and 536).
A somewhat similar, but repaired, plaque by Adam van Vianen dated circa 1620 and repousse and chased with the Meeting of David and Abigail was in the collection of Joseph R. Ritman (Sotheby's Geneva, 16 May 1995 lot 14)
Adam van Vianen (circa 1568 - 1627) unlike his famous brother Paul (circa 1565/1570 - 1613), who became court goldsmith to William V of Bavaria and later to Rudolph II in Prague, spent most of his working life in Holland. He is best known for his use of the auricular style which he had fully mastered as early as 1614 as is demonstrated by a remarkable covered ewer of that year now in the Rijksmuseum (sold Christie's Amsterdam, October 19, 1976 lot 544). However he continued as well to work in the more conventional Mannerist fashion of the period and indeed frequently combined the two styles with chased pictorial subjects in the Mannerist taste surounded by auricular borders. His son and apprentice Christian (1598 - after 1660) published his father's designs in Utrecht and was an extremely important goldsmith in his own right, working for, among others, King Charles I of England.
See illustration
Manfred Sellink, Cornelis Cort, Constich Plaedt-snijder van Horne in Hollandt, exhibition catalogue, Boymans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, 13 March - 1 May 1994, no. 58. Op. cit. : As described in Acts 9:1-19, Paul (whose name prior to his conversion is Saul) is a high-ranking official who actively participates in the persecution of Jesus' disciples. While he is accompanying a convoy of soldiers on the road to Damascus, a blinding light appears on the horizon. Paul falls to earth, blinded, and Jesus speaks to him from the heavens. For three days he cannot see until the devout Ananias miraculously cures him. Henceforth Paul is a religious zealot, who eventually dies a martyr's death in Rome.
Ter Molen dates this plaque circa 1613.
He bases this date on the fact that the plaque shows stylistically a similarity with a dated tazza dish representing a scene of Jupiter and Io after the Metamorphoses of Ovidius.(op. cit. Ter Molen nos. 432 and 536).
A somewhat similar, but repaired, plaque by Adam van Vianen dated circa 1620 and repousse and chased with the Meeting of David and Abigail was in the collection of Joseph R. Ritman (Sotheby's Geneva, 16 May 1995 lot 14)
Adam van Vianen (circa 1568 - 1627) unlike his famous brother Paul (circa 1565/1570 - 1613), who became court goldsmith to William V of Bavaria and later to Rudolph II in Prague, spent most of his working life in Holland. He is best known for his use of the auricular style which he had fully mastered as early as 1614 as is demonstrated by a remarkable covered ewer of that year now in the Rijksmuseum (sold Christie's Amsterdam, October 19, 1976 lot 544). However he continued as well to work in the more conventional Mannerist fashion of the period and indeed frequently combined the two styles with chased pictorial subjects in the Mannerist taste surounded by auricular borders. His son and apprentice Christian (1598 - after 1660) published his father's designs in Utrecht and was an extremely important goldsmith in his own right, working for, among others, King Charles I of England.
See illustration