Attributed to Jean Miette (active circa 1565)

Sotheby's Paris, 16 April 2013, lots 16 and 17;

À la façon de Venise, Paris, 22 March 2014;

Where acquired.

These painted enamel plates depicting the Creation of Animals and the Creation of Adam were inspired by woodcuts by Bernard Salomon (active around 1550), illustrated in Quadrins Historiques de la Bible, published by Jean de Tournes in Lyon in 1555. Among the Limousin enamellers, whose knowledge of the major artists was acquired through engravings and publications circulating the continent, the diversity of iconographic sources in Jean Miette's works reflect his extensive knowledge of European art (notably Holbein, Raphael, Dürer and his disciple Aldegrever).

Another series of five blue-backed enamel plates illustrating Genesis and featuring the same characteristic border ornamentation is in the Louvre (inv. nos.OA 6192, OA 6194, OA 6195 and MR 2438); while two other plates depicting the Sacrifice of Abel and Cain and the Creation of the Animals at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore (inv. nos. 44.45 and 44.56).

RELATED LITERATURE

S. Baratte, Les Emaux peints de Limoges, Paris, 2000, p.296 and p.172; V. Ortega-Tillier, ‘L’art de Jean Miette’, L'Estampille/L'Objet d'Art, no. 408, December 2005, pp.63-70; La Rencontre des Héros : regards croisés sur les émaux peints de la Renaissance appartenant aux collections du Petit Palais et du Musée municipal de l'Evêché de Limoges, exh. cat. Musée municipal de l'Evêché, Limoges, 2002, pp.190-191.