The “Milan Marsyas Painter”

Alfred Spero, London;

Cyril Humphris, London;

His sale Christie’s, New York, 1 June 1994, lot 32;

Angela Gräfin von Wallwitz, Munich;

Where acquired.

G. Kaucher, Le Peintre du Marsyas de Milan, Paris, 2024, n° 76, pp. 280, 281. 

The painted scene on this plate shows the apex of the drama of a passionate love affair between the two unfortunate lovers. It depicts the exact moment when a desperate Thisbe discovers what he thought was the dead body of Pyramus and who killed himself. Thisbe then killed herself with the same sword used by Pyramus. The city of Babylon is in the distance with blue hills on the right. For the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe see Wilson, Tin-glaze and image culture the MAK maiolica collection, Vienna, 2022, no. 160.

Iconographic sources for the design are two engravings by Marco Dente: the first is the figure of Pyramus based on the dead soldier in the foreground of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge composition by Raphael (fig. 1); the other is from the satyr at the centre of the fountain from a print of a Satyr and Nymph (fig. 2).

The painter of this plate worked mainly in Urbino between circa 1525 and 1535. His style seems to derive, from the work of Nicola da Urbino in the 1520s and he may have been trained in or worked in Nicola’s workshop. He was also associated with Xanto Avelli with whom he collaborated, notably on the 'Three Crescents service', one piece of which is dated 1530 (see G. Kaucher, Le Peintre du Marsyas de Milan, Paris, 2024, nos. 1-10, p. 63; no.131, p.102.).

Typical of the style of the painter are the contorted tree roots painted in a brownish palette with white highlights as well as the depiction of the anatomy of Thisbe and his classical profile (G. Kaucher, Le Peintre du Marsyas de Milan, Paris, 2024, pp. 41-43).

John Mallet, in 1988, proposed the name of the painter of this dish, 'The Milan Marsyas Painter' because of a plate with Apollo and Marsyas in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan inscribed “De.apollo,e.marsia”; this painter also produced a group of four other plates with Ovidian subjects also in the Castello Sforzesco. These may have been intended to form part of a single set (see R. Ausenda (ed), Musei e Gallerie a Milano, Milan 2000, Vol.I, no. 199, p.190).

The latest datable work Mallet attributes to this painter is a fragment in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, which has the date 1535 in lustre. 

RELATED LITERATURE

R. Ausenda, (ed.) Musei e Gallerie a Milano, Museo d'Arti Applicate. Le ceramiche. Tomo primo, Milan, 2000, no. 199;

J.V.G Mallet, 'Xanto: I suoi compagni e seguaci' in Francesco Xanto Avelli da Rovigo. Atti del convegno Internazionale di Studi, 1980, Rovigo, 1988, p.71-73.