Italian, probably Urbino, circa 1540-1545

Serafino Tordelli (1787 - 1864) Collection, Spoleto;

Spitzer Collection, Paris;

His sale, Chevallier and Mannheim, Paris, 17 April - 16 June 1893, lot 1160, bought by Gallois;

Le Tallec Collection;

Ranier Zietz Ltd., London, 2007;

Where acquired.

T. Wilson, ‘The Maiolica-Painter Francesco Durantino: Mobility and Collaboration in Urbino “istoriato”’, in Silvia Glaser (ed.), Italianische Fayencen der Renaissance. Ihre Suren in internationalen Museumssammlungen. Wissenschaftliche Beibände zum Anzeiger des germanischen Nationalmuseums, Band 22, Nuremberg, 2004, pp. 123-124, no. 56;

 J.V.G. Mallet, ‘Au Musée de Céramique à Sèvres: majoliques historiées provenant de deux ateliers de la renaissance’, in La revue du Louvre et des Musées de France, 1996, no. 1, p. 55, figs. 14 and 15;

 E. Molinier et al., La Collection Spitzer, vol. 4,  London, 1892, p.54, no. 123 (not-illustrated). 

This intriguing dish has been the subject of detailed scholarly discussion, but the attribution is unresolved. The monogram between the letters F and D, apparently SO or SIO, has not been conclusively interpreted, though John Mallet suggests involvement of the influential maiolica-painter Francesco Durantino in the making of the piece. No other piece of maiolica convincingly attributed to this painter has been found, though there are stylistic affinities both with the work of Francesco Durantino and the painter whom Mallet has named “the Painter of the Orpheus basin” (after a basin at Sèvres); both of these painters worked in Guido di Merlino’s workshop in the early 1540s, but the latter may have also worked for a time for Girolamo di Lanfranco at Pesaro, close to Urbino. Wilson (2004, op. cit., n.56) rejects the suggestion that this dish was painted by Francesco Durantino. It is tempting to associate the monogram with the Urbino workshop-owner Francesco di Silvano; however, this dish does not seem to be linked to other works from his workshop (Wilson, op.cit., 2022, p. 38 and works there cited).

The central figure of Orpheus may have been inspired from Gian Giacomo Caraglio’s Adoration of the Shepherds, after Parmigianino, particularly the pose of a bowing figure (fig.1) Caraglio, a leading engraver of the period, played a vital role in spreading the elegant forms of Mannerist art. His prints were widely used by maiolica painters as sources for refined and expressive figure types.

This dish was once in the renowned collection of Serafino Tordelli (1786–1864) of Spoleto, one of the most important and discerning collectors of maiolica in 19th-century Italy (Wilson, op.cit., 2018, p. 190).