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Lot Essay
The inscription appears to translate as 'Aeneas at the Temple of palla[de?]', although it is unclear which god the temple was dedicated to. The statue is depicted wearing a helmet and female robes, which would be expected for Pallas Athena, but the figure is holding a lyre, an attribute more typical of Apollo, so it is possible that the painter may have intended the inscription to end [a]pollo.
This dish is an important addition to the group of pieces painted by the so-called 'Painter of the Della Rovere' dishes, who John Mallet has recently argued was the same painter as the ‘Painter of the Coalmine Service'. From the 1870s scholars gradually identified surviving pieces by the ‘Della Rovere dishes’ painter, the dated pieces with dates ranging from 1540-1544. These pieces were considered to be distinct from a group of pieces painted by an anonymous painter that John Mallet initially called 'The Painter of the Coal-Mine Dish'1 and subsequently renamed 'The Painter of the Coalmine Service' (as other pieces with coalmining emblems on the reverses came to light). In 2003 Mallet published a seminal article on the subject, in which he argued that the 'Painter of the Della Rovere' dishes and the ‘Painter of the Coalmine Service' were in fact the same.2
The beautiful column in the centre of the composition of this dish, the characteristic dark step in the foreground and the colouring of the temple are reminiscent of the footed dish with Achilles which was painted three years earlier in 1540, and which is illustrated by Tjark Hausmann, Fioritura, Berlin, 2002, pp. 174-176, no. 69.
1. After an istoriato coppa in the Gardner Museum, Toronto, which extraordinarily bears the scene of an open-cast coalmine on its reverse, the date 1546 and the inscription TESAVRVS. CARBONES. ERANT (Coals were treasure). Mallet identified a number of pieces by the same hand in his article ‘The painter of the Coal-Mine Dish’, published in Timothy Wilson (ed.), Italian Renaissance Pottery, Papers written in association with a colloquium at the British Museum, London, 1991, pp. 62-73, and he illustrated them alongside the dated coppa (figs. 1 and 2).
2. J.V.G. Mallet, 'One artist or two? The painter of the so-called 'Della Rovere' dishes and the painter of the Coalmine service', Faenza, Anno LXXXIX, Fascicolo I-VI, 2003, pp. 51-74, where a group of other known pieces are cited.
This dish is an important addition to the group of pieces painted by the so-called 'Painter of the Della Rovere' dishes, who John Mallet has recently argued was the same painter as the ‘Painter of the Coalmine Service'. From the 1870s scholars gradually identified surviving pieces by the ‘Della Rovere dishes’ painter, the dated pieces with dates ranging from 1540-1544. These pieces were considered to be distinct from a group of pieces painted by an anonymous painter that John Mallet initially called 'The Painter of the Coal-Mine Dish'1 and subsequently renamed 'The Painter of the Coalmine Service' (as other pieces with coalmining emblems on the reverses came to light). In 2003 Mallet published a seminal article on the subject, in which he argued that the 'Painter of the Della Rovere' dishes and the ‘Painter of the Coalmine Service' were in fact the same.2
The beautiful column in the centre of the composition of this dish, the characteristic dark step in the foreground and the colouring of the temple are reminiscent of the footed dish with Achilles which was painted three years earlier in 1540, and which is illustrated by Tjark Hausmann, Fioritura, Berlin, 2002, pp. 174-176, no. 69.
1. After an istoriato coppa in the Gardner Museum, Toronto, which extraordinarily bears the scene of an open-cast coalmine on its reverse, the date 1546 and the inscription TESAVRVS. CARBONES. ERANT (Coals were treasure). Mallet identified a number of pieces by the same hand in his article ‘The painter of the Coal-Mine Dish’, published in Timothy Wilson (ed.), Italian Renaissance Pottery, Papers written in association with a colloquium at the British Museum, London, 1991, pp. 62-73, and he illustrated them alongside the dated coppa (figs. 1 and 2).
2. J.V.G. Mallet, 'One artist or two? The painter of the so-called 'Della Rovere' dishes and the painter of the Coalmine service', Faenza, Anno LXXXIX, Fascicolo I-VI, 2003, pp. 51-74, where a group of other known pieces are cited.