CIRCA 1540-50, PERHAPS URBINO

The scene depicted on this dish is from the myth of Peleus and Thetis in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book XI, 217-65. Proteus, a sea god, prophesied that the nymph Thetis would bear a son greater than his father. Zeus had intended to seduce Thetis himself, but fearing Proteus' prediction, he sent his grandson Peleus to ravish her. According to the Latin text Thetis turned herself first into a bird, then into a tree and finally into a spotted tigress (not a dragon) to shake off Peleus' unwanted advances. Peleus retired to pray for divine guidance at an altar, and with the aid of Proteus's advice was eventually able to overcome Thetis's ability to change her form. The marriage that resulted produced a son, the hero Achilles.

Other maiolica dishes also erroneously depict Thetis's final transformation as a dragon, rather than a spotted tigress as described in the text,1 and Julia Poole has suggested that this discrepancy arose from the woodcut illustrations in contemporary copies of Ovid's Metamorphoses which were used by maiolica painters as source material.2


1. The dish from the Isabella d'Este service by Nicola da Urbino depicts the same subject, but includes Thetis transformed into a swan as well as a dragon, rather than a tigress or serpent; see J.E. Poole, Italian Maiolica and incised slipware in the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, Cambridge, 1995, pp. 304-307, no. 376, and col. pl. 41, and p. 306 where she cites other maiolica pieces depicting Thetis as a dragon.
2. Giovanni dei Bonsignori's Ouidio methamorphoseos vulgare, printed in Venice in 1497, and later editions.