The Painter “Lu Ur”, Italian, Urbino, signed and dated 1533

Philip N. and A.S.W. Rosenbach Foundation, PA sale;

Sotheby's New York, 2 March 1974, lot 38;

Cyril Humphris, London;

Arthur Sackler Collection;

His sale, Christie’s New York, part II, 1 June 1994, lot 22;

Angela Gräfin von Wallwitz, Munich;

Rainer Zietz Ltd., London, 2010. 

Where acquired.

Washington D.C., National Gallery of Arts, Sixteenth-Century Italian Maiolica from the Arthur M. Sackler Collection and from the National Gallery of Art’s Widener Collection, 5 September 1982 - 2 January 1983, no. 52;

San Francisco, The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Palace of the Legion of Honor, Italian Maiolica from the Arthur M. Ackler Collections, 1986-1988, no.77. 

C. Castelletti, “Le allegorie del Sacco di Roma del 1527 nella maiolica di Francesco Xanto Avelli,” in 1527. Il sacco di Roma, edited by Sabine Frommel and Jérôme Delaplanche, with the collaboration of Claudio Castelletti, Rome, 2020, p. 193-208;

T. Wilson, The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica Painting. Catalogue of a private collection, Turin, 2018, p. 266 note 11;

T. Wilson, “Il pittore di maiolica ‘Lu Ur’.” Fimantiquari Arteviva, vol. 2, no. 2, 1993, pp. 19-31;

J. V. G. Mallet, ‘Xanto: i suoi compagni e seguaci’ in Francesco Xanto Avelli da Rovigo, Atti del convegno Internazionale di Studi 1980, Rovigo, pp. 67-108, fig. 14 a, b.

This plate is extremely rare: only one other un-lustred piece marked with the letter “L” and inscribed as made in Urbino and dated 1533 is known (the other, in a private collection is painted with the subject of Camillus freeing Rome). Four other lustred plates are known (one of which is in this sale as lot 11). For the full list of plates from this group see Wilson (op. cit. 2018, p. 268). Scholars agree that the same painter was responsible for both groups (two un-lustred, four lustred and all marked with the letter L).

This plate, described and illustrated in Castelletti (2020, op. cit., p.196), is painted with a political allegory of the Sack of Rome in 1527 by the army of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V 1519-1556 during the rule of Pope Clemente VII 1523-34, Giulio de’ Medici. Emperor Charles V is the dominant figure wearing classical Roman armour and an eagle helmet. This figure of the Emperor is taken from a detail of the engraving of the Massacre of Innocents by Marco Dente of Ravenna after Baccio Bandinelli (fig 1).

See also the version of the subject by Xanto Avelli sold by Sotheby’s, New York, 7 February 2025, lot 647, to be published by Timothy Wilson in a forthcoming volume of the journal Faenza.

RELATED LITERATURE

T. Wilson, Italian Maiolica and Europe, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2017, no. 6, p.153; no. 63, p.161;

La via della ceramica tra Umbria e Marche: Maioliche rinascimentali da collezioni private. Ediz. Illustrata, Gubbio, L'Arte Grafica, 2010.