Perhaps Fontana workshop

Christie's London, 7 October 1996, lot 245;

Rainer Zietz Ltd., London, 2010;

Where acquired.

A plate from the same armorial service, including an armorial device with a column within the shield painted with Europa and the bull, but by a different painter is in the Ashmolean Museum and illustrated by Wilson, (op. cit., no. 75, pp.185-186).

The scrolling oval shield of arms or a Column Gules, is a heraldic emblem which recalls the Roman princely family of Colonna whose arms have a red crowned column on a yellow ground.

The story of Jupiter and Aegina (Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Book VI, lines 113) was told in more detail in Giovanni Bonsignori’s popular Italian prose paraphrase of the Metamorphoses (Ovidio Metamorphoseos Vulgare, book 6, chap.13: “Giove si convertì in fuoco e si giacque la notte con Egina” which translates to “Jupiter turned into fire and lay with Aegina during the night.”). Jupiter (Zeus), fell in love with the mortal woman Aegina, the daughter of the river god Asopus. To seduce or abduct her, Jupiter transformed himself into a flame and carried her off to the island of Oenone, which was later named Aegina in her honour, while Asopus chased after them. Their union produced a son, Aeacus, who would later become the king of the island and who was also known for his role in the underworld as a judge of the dead.

RELATED LITERATURE

T. Wilson, Italian Maiolica and Europe, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2017, no. 75. pp. 185-186.