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Lot Essay
This remarkable enamel plate illuminating the Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek has a jewel-like quality and vibrant colour scheme characteristic of the work of the maker known as Jean de Court. An enameller in the mid to late 16th century, he was head of a highly successful workshop and part of a family dynasty of artists. Only one fully signed and dated work by de Court survives, a polychrome plaque depicting Marguerite de France as Minerva created in 1555 (inv. no. C589, see Higgott, loc. cit.). Due to this lack of signed works, de Court’s identity has been a subject of much debate among scholars since the 19th century and he has been associated with works initialled ‘I.C.’, ‘I.D.C’ and ‘I.C.D.V.’ Adding to the complicated history of this artist, he is also believed to have been the same Jean de Court who is recorded as the court painter to Mary Queen of Scots from 1562 and in 1572 succeeded François Clouet as painter to Charles IX of France.
The present lot, monogrammed I.C. on the reverse, is a singular piece from a series of works produced by this master, taken from the printworks of draughtsman Bernard Solomon, active in Lyon between 1540 and 1561, who produced the seminal series of illustrations to accompany the 1553 publication Quadrins historiques de la Bible by Claude Paradin. Salomon’s original autograph drawing now forms part of the Jeffrey E. Horvitz in Boston (M. Lejeune, op. cit., p. 167).
Comparative devotional plates by the Master IC include a set of three depicting The Adoration of the Shepherds, Adoration of the Magi and Visitation (sold, Alice & Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Artists Collecting Art; Christie’s, 14 July 2023, lot 34, hammer £189,000) and Entry into the Ark (Louvre, inv. no. MR 2461). Stylistic and iconographic similarity with the latter, and the absence of the flat rim, would suggest that this plate was originally envisioned as a tazza, the foot now lacking. Further devotional tazza works by the Master I.C. are housed in the Frick Collection, New York (inv. no. 1916.4.39) and Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (inv. no. 44.199).
The present lot, monogrammed I.C. on the reverse, is a singular piece from a series of works produced by this master, taken from the printworks of draughtsman Bernard Solomon, active in Lyon between 1540 and 1561, who produced the seminal series of illustrations to accompany the 1553 publication Quadrins historiques de la Bible by Claude Paradin. Salomon’s original autograph drawing now forms part of the Jeffrey E. Horvitz in Boston (M. Lejeune, op. cit., p. 167).
Comparative devotional plates by the Master IC include a set of three depicting The Adoration of the Shepherds, Adoration of the Magi and Visitation (sold, Alice & Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Artists Collecting Art; Christie’s, 14 July 2023, lot 34, hammer £189,000) and Entry into the Ark (Louvre, inv. no. MR 2461). Stylistic and iconographic similarity with the latter, and the absence of the flat rim, would suggest that this plate was originally envisioned as a tazza, the foot now lacking. Further devotional tazza works by the Master I.C. are housed in the Frick Collection, New York (inv. no. 1916.4.39) and Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (inv. no. 44.199).