THE LU UR PAINTER (‘L’), PROBABLY LUSTRED IN THE WORKSHOP OF MAESTRO GIORGIO IN GUBBIO, PAINTED IN URBINO, SIGNED AND DATED 1533

Francis Douce (1757-1834), bequeathed to Samuel Rush Meyrick (1783-1848);

Adolf von Beckerath Collection, Rudolph Lepke sale, Berlin, 5 November 1913, lot 339;

Max Bondi Collection;

His sale, Galleria Lurati, Milan, 9-20 December 1929, lot 181;

Dr. Robert Bak Collection, New York (not included in his sale, Sotheby's London, 7 December 1965);

Paolo Sprovieri Collection; 

Semenzat, Florence, 15 December 2001, lot 130;

Semenzato, Florence, 19 December 2002, lot 184;

Tondolo Collection, Bari;

Christie's London, 4 June 2013, lot 5;

Where acquired.

Gubbio, Palazzo Ducale, La Via della Ceramica tra Umbria e Marche, June 2010-January 2011, no.2.39. 

T. Wilson, The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica Painting. Catalogue of a private collection, Turin 2018, pp.266-268, note 10;

E. A. Sannipoli et al., La Via Della Ceramica Tra Umbria e Marche, Maioliche Rinascimentali da Collezioni Private, Gubbio, Exhibition Catalogue, Città di Castello, 2010, pp.186-187;

J. Lessmann, “Bildfliesen von Francesco Xanto Avelli zur Geschichte Persiens”, Keramos 186, 2004, pp. 61-85, citing this piece on p. 81;

T. Wilson, Italian Maiolica of the Renaissance, Milan, 1996, pp.220-222, no.94;

T. Wilson, “'Il pittore di maiolica 'Lu Ur’”, in Fimantiquari, anno 2, 1993, no.2, figs. 7 and 8;

J. Lessmann, 'Xanto's Panels', in The Burlington Magazine, no.132, 1990, p.349, n. 25;

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.76;

G. Ballardini, Corpus della Maiolica Italiana, II, Le Maioliche Datate Dal 1531 al 1535, Rome, 1938, no.110, figs. 105 and 294 R. 

This plate is extremely rare because it is one of a group of only four lustred plates marked “L” and dated 1533 (Wilson 2018, op.cit.,p.268). The dish shows a group of soldiers attacking a king, on the reverse the inscription reads “The Death of Oropastes King of Persia in Book I of Justin the historian. In Urbino. L.”. The subject is an episode from ancient Persian history taken from Justin's Epitome of Pompeius Trogus in which a group of conspirators assassinated Oropastes, who had usurped the throne of Persia. Gobryas, one of the conspirators, is shown wrestling with Oropastes and calling out to his companions to kill the king, despite the danger that he too would be killed in the fight.

Pompeius Trogus or Trogus Pompeius, was an historian of the Augustinian age in the second half of the first century B.C. In the Renaissance, the epitome of this history, written by Justin in the second century A.D., was a well-known source of ancient history. His straightforward narrative was much read in the 15th and 16th centuries and by 1477 was available in the Italian translation.

It is likely that the composition conceived by Francesco Xanto Avellli but executed by his assistant and collaborator Lu Ur. Some of the figures are adapted, with variations from engraved sources, including

the print attributed to Marco da Ravenna, called the “Battle with a cutlas” (Battaglia con un coltellaccio). The soldier at the extreme left seems to derive from the figure of the warrior, while the soldier holding a spear on the right is from an analogous figure in the engraving with a battle scene by Marco da Ravenna after Raphael or Giulio Romano. The central figure of Oropastes is reversed from the upper left-hand figure in the engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi after Bandinelli of The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence,

Bartsch XIV, p. 89, no. 104.

The collaboration between Xanto and his assistant The Lu Ur Painter is documented in two maiolica series: the Trojan War (c. 1530–1535) and the Persian History Panel Series (1536), in which one panel is signed by Lu Ur as Xanto’s assistant. Though the compositions are by Xanto and bear his signature, parts of them were likely painted by collaborators, like Lu Ur. This plate, an early example of the subject by Lu Ur, such as the present plate which is very likely based on a lost version by Xanto.

Furthermore, the popularity of Persian history subjects from Justin likely originated with Xanto, who, with Lu Ur's assistance, created an extensive series of plaques with this theme in 1536. The series includes a different depiction of the killing of Oropastes (Lessmann 2004, op.cit., pp. 61–85; p. 81). The panels illustrate early Persian history as told in Justin’s Epitome of Pompeius Trogus, subjects already explored by Xanto prior to the 1536 series.

THE LU UR PAINTER

Lu Ur was a painter, working in Urbino between 1533 and 1536, whose style was dependent on Xanto’s as his associate or assistant. The letter “L” is the short, more conventional mark of the painter who on one of the Persian history plaques, signed in a more extended form: Lu Ur. It has been suggested that this artist could be a painter who called himself Luca o Lucio da Urbino. Numerous maiolica painters named Luca seemed to have worked in Urbino around this time and no hypothesis has been offered for the exact identity of the artist. The different possibilities and suggestions of maiolica painters with names beginning with an L is discussed by Wilson (2018, op.cit., no.14, p. 268).

The Lu Ur Painter shared Xanto’s taste for ambitious and unusual, allegorical, historical and political subjects. He used the same “scissor and paste” technique that Xanto fully developed, employing single figures from engravings (especially from prints by Marcantonio Raimondi and contemporaries based on paintings by artists of the Raphael school) and assembling them into impressive compositions, often resulting in cryptic allegorical subjects. While some of the subjects appear visually enigmatic, they are identified by the inscriptions on the reverses of the plates.

The verse-like rhythm and the punctuation of the inscriptions on works by The Lu Ur Painter show the influence of Xanto who, through his elaborate inscriptions in verses and rhyming quotations, satisfied his desire to be considered an intellectual and a courtier because his inscriptions demonstrate the extent of his reading of the classics and his knowledge of Italian poetry.