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Lot Essay
The inscription 'Del Tirannico stato de Dionisio Syragusano, essempio' translates as 'Of the tyrannical state of Dionysus the Syracusian, example'. The story depicted refers to Damocles, an obsequious courtier in the court of Dionysius II, the tyranical ruler of Syracuse in 4th century B.C. Sicily. Damocles declared the king to be very fortunate to have such power and magnificence, and the king suggested that they change places. Damocles leapt at the chance, and once seated in the throne he realised that the king had arranged for a sword to be suspended from a single hair from a horse's tail above it. Damocles finally begged the Dionysius to be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be in the 'fortunate' position of being king.
A plate painted two years later with a similar scene is now in the Gillet Collection, see C. Fiocco, et al., Majoliques Italiennes du Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Lyon, Dijon, 2001, pp. 232-233, no. 156, where the present lot is mentioned.
The figure of Dionysius appears to have been derived from Agostino Veneziano's engraving number IV from the series 'the history of Psyche' after Raphael. The two servants could have been derived from Giovanni Antonio da Brescia's copy of Marcantonio Raimondi's 'Quos Ego' engraving (see p. 66), rather than the Raimondi print.1 The sources for the figure of Dionysius and the two servants on the present lot and the Gillet plate are the same, but the figure of Damocles is different on the two pieces. On the Gillet plate, Damocles is derived from a seated figure in Caraglio's 'School of Ancient Philosophy'. A print source for Damocles on the present lot has not yet been identified.
1. See J.V.G. Mallet, Exhibition Catalogue, Xanto, Pottery-painter, Poet, Man of the Renaissance, Wallace Collection, London, 2007, p. 74, where he points out that as the figures are reversed from Raimondi's engraving, it is more probable that Xanto used da Brescia's copy. One of Xanto's pieces with similar figures bears an inscription on the reverse which spells Carthage without an 'h', as it appears on the da Brescia print (but not the Raimondi print).
A plate painted two years later with a similar scene is now in the Gillet Collection, see C. Fiocco, et al., Majoliques Italiennes du Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Lyon, Dijon, 2001, pp. 232-233, no. 156, where the present lot is mentioned.
The figure of Dionysius appears to have been derived from Agostino Veneziano's engraving number IV from the series 'the history of Psyche' after Raphael. The two servants could have been derived from Giovanni Antonio da Brescia's copy of Marcantonio Raimondi's 'Quos Ego' engraving (see p. 66), rather than the Raimondi print.
1. See J.V.G. Mallet, Exhibition Catalogue, Xanto, Pottery-painter, Poet, Man of the Renaissance, Wallace Collection, London, 2007, p. 74, where he points out that as the figures are reversed from Raimondi's engraving, it is more probable that Xanto used da Brescia's copy. One of Xanto's pieces with similar figures bears an inscription on the reverse which spells Carthage without an 'h', as it appears on the da Brescia print (but not the Raimondi print).