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拍品专文
The scene is based on a print of The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche by an anonymous engraver after the 1518 frescoed ceiling by Raphael and his workshop in the Villa Farnesina in Rome(1). It illustrates the moment when, after many tribulations thrown in their path by Cupid’s mother, Venus, Cupid’s union with Psyche is formally recognized by Jupiter at a wedding banquet.
The present lot is an important and very rare document of Venetian maiolica. The inscription on the reverse translates as ‘Banquet of the great Jupiter for all the heavenly Gods. In Venice at San Thomà. In the workshop of Maestro Francesco of Castel Durante, 1545'. In his late-1550s treatise on the making of maiolica, Cipriano Piccolpasso not only notes the various processes of maiolica-making in Venice and the types of decoration that were typical of the region but also comments on the great size of Francesco di Piero’s kiln, which he noted was twice the size of anything in Urbino(2). In spite of this, and other contemporary accounts which testify to the importance of Venetian maiolica, there are remarkably few documentary pieces or relevant archaeological finds(3).
Francesco di Piero da Castel Durante was the brother-in-law of Domenico di Donato (who is better known as Maestro Domenego da Venezia). The two operated their own workshops and were related by their marriages to the daughters of Jacomo di Antonio di Giacobuzio Ciache di Sant’Angelo, the most important potter in Venice during the first half of the 16th century, who had moved from the Duchy of Urbino to Venice in 1506. Francesco di Piero worked in Venice and his native Castel Durante, moving between the two, making it difficult to distinguish between his works produced in the two centers(4). Another important documentary charger is dated 1546 and inscribed fatto in Venezia in chastello (made in Venice in Castello)(5). It has been attributed to Francesco di Piero, although other pottery workshops were also producing wares in the Castello district (west of the Grand Canal)(6). The present lot is unambiguously from Francesco di Piero’s workshop.
The painting style suggests that the painter was probably trained in Urbino or Duchy of Urbino, and it is closely related to the style of an anonymous painter dubbed ‘The Eloquence Painter’(7), although it appears to be by a different hand.
1. See Suzanne Boorsch and John Spike (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, Italian Masters of the Sixteenth Century, New York, 1985, Vol. 28 (formerly Vol. 15, Part 1), p. 58. The second state of the print includes the address of Antonio Salamanca, the publisher, with the date 1545. Salamanca and his partner Antonio Lafrery were active in Rome, but maintained an extensive network of dealers/publishers throughout Italy, including in Venice. Many of their plates were brought to Venice from Rome and vice versa. A variant version of this print by the Master of the Die cannot be the source as it omits the altar, and instead depicts a long table; see Boorsch and Spike, ibid., p. 194.
2. For the reference to the large kiln, see Cipriano Piccolpasso, The Three Books of the Potter’s Art, translation and introduction by Ronald Lightbown and Alan Caiger-Smith, London, 1980, Vol. 2, pp. 64-65. Piccolpasso’s Li tre libri dell’arte del vasajo, circa 1557, describing the processes of maiolica making, was written at the request of a visiting French Cardinal (François de Tournon), who was interested in establishing a similar industry in France. The treatise seemingly did not reach the Cardinal, but survived, incredibly, in the form of a single manuscript copy, and it was published in the 19th century.
3. See Elisa Sani, ‘Jacomo o Ludovico’, Considerazioni sulla bottega di Maestro Jacomo da Pesaro a Venezia alla luce di un nuovo piatto firmato’ in Faenza, 100, no. 1, 2014, pp. 74-87, and see Angelica Alvera’ Bortolotto, Maiolica a Venezia, Bergamo, 1988.
4. Timothy Wilson, ‘Maiolica in Renaissance Venice’, Apollo, vol. 125, March 1987, p. 187.
5. Now in Philadelphia, see Wendy M. Watson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, The Howard I. and Janet H. Stein
Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, December 2001-April 2002 Exhibition Catalogue, Philadelphia, 2001, p. 58 (large color illustration), and p. 180, cat 4, and also Caterina Marcantoni Cherido, ibid., p. 124, fig. 9. The style of the Philadelphia charger, and the inscription on the reverse, are both different from the present lot.
6. As discussed by Caterina Marcantoni Cherido, ibid., p. 124.
7. For the plate in the Schroder Collection which is painted with An Allegory of the power of Eloquence and dated 1549, see Timothy Wilson, Italian Maiolica and Europe, Oxford, 2017, p. 197, figs. 75 and 76, and for a larger image see Angelica Alvera’ Bortolotto, ibid., p. 63.
The present lot is an important and very rare document of Venetian maiolica. The inscription on the reverse translates as ‘Banquet of the great Jupiter for all the heavenly Gods. In Venice at San Thomà. In the workshop of Maestro Francesco of Castel Durante, 1545'. In his late-1550s treatise on the making of maiolica, Cipriano Piccolpasso not only notes the various processes of maiolica-making in Venice and the types of decoration that were typical of the region but also comments on the great size of Francesco di Piero’s kiln, which he noted was twice the size of anything in Urbino(2). In spite of this, and other contemporary accounts which testify to the importance of Venetian maiolica, there are remarkably few documentary pieces or relevant archaeological finds(3).
Francesco di Piero da Castel Durante was the brother-in-law of Domenico di Donato (who is better known as Maestro Domenego da Venezia). The two operated their own workshops and were related by their marriages to the daughters of Jacomo di Antonio di Giacobuzio Ciache di Sant’Angelo, the most important potter in Venice during the first half of the 16th century, who had moved from the Duchy of Urbino to Venice in 1506. Francesco di Piero worked in Venice and his native Castel Durante, moving between the two, making it difficult to distinguish between his works produced in the two centers(4). Another important documentary charger is dated 1546 and inscribed fatto in Venezia in chastello (made in Venice in Castello)(5). It has been attributed to Francesco di Piero, although other pottery workshops were also producing wares in the Castello district (west of the Grand Canal)(6). The present lot is unambiguously from Francesco di Piero’s workshop.
The painting style suggests that the painter was probably trained in Urbino or Duchy of Urbino, and it is closely related to the style of an anonymous painter dubbed ‘The Eloquence Painter’(7), although it appears to be by a different hand.
1. See Suzanne Boorsch and John Spike (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, Italian Masters of the Sixteenth Century, New York, 1985, Vol. 28 (formerly Vol. 15, Part 1), p. 58. The second state of the print includes the address of Antonio Salamanca, the publisher, with the date 1545. Salamanca and his partner Antonio Lafrery were active in Rome, but maintained an extensive network of dealers/publishers throughout Italy, including in Venice. Many of their plates were brought to Venice from Rome and vice versa. A variant version of this print by the Master of the Die cannot be the source as it omits the altar, and instead depicts a long table; see Boorsch and Spike, ibid., p. 194.
2. For the reference to the large kiln, see Cipriano Piccolpasso, The Three Books of the Potter’s Art, translation and introduction by Ronald Lightbown and Alan Caiger-Smith, London, 1980, Vol. 2, pp. 64-65. Piccolpasso’s Li tre libri dell’arte del vasajo, circa 1557, describing the processes of maiolica making, was written at the request of a visiting French Cardinal (François de Tournon), who was interested in establishing a similar industry in France. The treatise seemingly did not reach the Cardinal, but survived, incredibly, in the form of a single manuscript copy, and it was published in the 19th century.
3. See Elisa Sani, ‘Jacomo o Ludovico’, Considerazioni sulla bottega di Maestro Jacomo da Pesaro a Venezia alla luce di un nuovo piatto firmato’ in Faenza, 100, no. 1, 2014, pp. 74-87, and see Angelica Alvera’ Bortolotto, Maiolica a Venezia, Bergamo, 1988.
4. Timothy Wilson, ‘Maiolica in Renaissance Venice’, Apollo, vol. 125, March 1987, p. 187.
5. Now in Philadelphia, see Wendy M. Watson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics, The Howard I. and Janet H. Stein
Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, December 2001-April 2002 Exhibition Catalogue, Philadelphia, 2001, p. 58 (large color illustration), and p. 180, cat 4, and also Caterina Marcantoni Cherido, ibid., p. 124, fig. 9. The style of the Philadelphia charger, and the inscription on the reverse, are both different from the present lot.
6. As discussed by Caterina Marcantoni Cherido, ibid., p. 124.
7. For the plate in the Schroder Collection which is painted with An Allegory of the power of Eloquence and dated 1549, see Timothy Wilson, Italian Maiolica and Europe, Oxford, 2017, p. 197, figs. 75 and 76, and for a larger image see Angelica Alvera’ Bortolotto, ibid., p. 63.