Duchy of Urbino

Sotheby's New York, The Blumka Collection, 9 January 1996, lot 27;

Artcurial Paris, Italika Collection, 15 March 2005, lot 33;

Where acquired.

G. Gardelli, Italika Maiolica Italiana del Rinascimento. Saggi e studi, Faenza, 1999, pp. 228-230.

The scene on this plate is a very dynamic and colourful translation of Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving of David Beheading Goliath after Raphael’s design for the Vatican Loggia (fig.1). Here the painter shows his ability to create a sense of depth in the composition through the illusionistic effect of the soldier appearing to jump out of the plate border, creating an aerial perspective in the landscape in the background.

Two other plates with comparable treatments of the same subject are: one in the Louvre, part of the Duprat service, signed Nella botega di M° Guido Durantino in Urbino and datable to 1535 (Giacomotti 1974, no. 841); and one inscribed with the Greek letters phi delta ΦΔ (probably Fedele Fulmine) and illustrated by Watson (1986, p.121, 122) in the Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt.

A bowl on low foot with the same scene after the same engraving, circle of Xanto and Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, Gubbio, circa 1535-1540 is illustrated by Timothy Wilson, Italian Maiolica of the Renaissance, Milan, 1996, no. 97, pp. 230-231.

RELATED LITERATURE

T. Wilson, Italian Maiolica of the Renaissance, Milan, 1996, no. 97, pp. 230-231;

W. M. Watson, Italian Renaissance Maiolica from the William A. Clark Collection, London, 1986, pp. 121-123;

J. Giacomotti, Catalogue des Majoliques des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 1974, no. 841, p. 259.