CIRCA 1550-70

For the similar example in the British Museum, see Dora Thornton and Timothy Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London, 2009, Vol. I, p. 157, no. 101, where they suggest that it seems likely that pieces of this type 'were table decorations reminiscent of the fruit-filled baskets, garlanded armorial roundels or lids to jars made by the Della Robbia workshop'. The British Museum example appears to be unique as a marked example (for Enea Utili), and three dated examples published by Carmen Ravenelli Guidotti are cited. Another two examples are illustrated by Jeanne Giacomotti, Catalogue des majoliques des musées nationaux, Paris, 1974, pp. 72-73, nos. 288 and 289.