SECOND HALF 16TH CENTURY

Details

A LIMOGES ENAMEL COVERED TAZZA DEPICTING GODS AND HEROES
SECOND HALF 16TH CENTURY
parcel-gilt polychrome and grisaille enamel; the cover probably associated, the silver gilt handle in the form of a snake; the underside of the lid with four portraits in profile of men and women; the interior of the bowl with Neptune in his chariot; the underside of the foot four labels inscribed '[Ein]satzstab RR / ...7', '304', 'No. 52 / I. [?] de R. / C', 'P. 48 / E. de R. / 240'
9 in. (22.5 cm.) high, overall

Provenance

Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868-1949), in the Fumoir sur la cour in the hôtel Saint-Florentin, Paris.
Confiscated from the above by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg following the Nazi occupation of France in May 1940 (ERR no. R 3827).
Recovered by the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Section from the Altaussee salt mines, Austria, and transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point, 20 June 1945 (MCCP no. 196/7).
Returned to France on 31 July 1946 and restituted to the Rothschild family.
By descent to the present owners.

Literature

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
S. Baratte, Les émaux peints de Limoges, Paris, 2000, p. 106.

Conditions of sale

Lot Essay

The depiction of Neptune in the interior bowl of the present tazza is derived from an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi (c.1480-1534) after designs by Raphael. The scene depicts an episode from Book I of Virgil’s Aeneid in which Neptune calms a tempest that had been raised against Aeneas’ fleet by Aoelus, ruler of the winds. A tazza with a comparable scene of Neptune in his chariot after Raimondi is housed in the collections of the Louvre (inv. MR 2457).

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