Probably Workshop of Maestro Domenego, Italian, Venetian, circa 1560 - 1580

Sotheby's London, 17 June 1986, lot 9;

Semenzatio Sale, Venice, 26-27 February 1988, lot 263;

Enrico Caviglia, Lugano, 1997;

German Private Collection;

Rainer Zietz Ltd., London, 2010;

Where acquired. 

The inscription translates: “how the Romans wished to abandon their homeland to the enemy, and how Scipio was the cause for them not leaving it.” The scene refers to the episode from the life of Scipio Africanus, following the devastating Roman defeat at the Battle of Cannae on 2 August 216 B.C. Upon learning that Lucius Caecilius Metellus and other statesmen were preparing to surrender Rome to Hannibal and the Carthaginians, Scipio, accompanied by his allies, burst into their meeting and, brandishing a sword, and compelled everyone present to swear an oath of loyalty to the Republic. 

In Livy, History of Rome, Book 22, Chapter 53 (translated by Benjamin Oliver Foster, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929 Scipio says: “I solemnly swear [...] with all the passion of my heart that I shall never desert our country or permit any other citizen of Rome to leave her in the lurch. If I wilfully break my oath, may Jupiter, Greatest and Best, bring me to a shameful death, with my house, my family and all I possess! Swear the same oath, Caecilius; and all the rest of you, swear it too. If anyone refuse, against him this sword is drawn.” 

The subject, though unusual, with a similar inscription, was painted by Francesco Durantino in Urbino on a plate sold at Sotheby's, 6 June 1989, lot 6.

DOMENEGO da VENEZIA 

Wilson listed the known signed and marked works by Maestro Domenego in The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica Painting. Catalogue of a private collection, Turin 2018. Maestro Domenego was maiolica-painter of exceptional range, whose work sometimes echoes the large-scale painting of contemporary Venice. 

Monica de Marco proposes an identification to the painter and the workshop-owner who marked several pieces attributed to Domenego da Venezia, some of them signed in the first person indicating Domenego as the painter, not just the workshop owner. It was previously suggested that the painter was Domenego de’ Bethi (son-in-law of Jacomo da Pesaro) who died in 1570, and later Domenego Rospo Becher, who died in 1602 (see De Marco in M. P. Panarello, et.al., op. cit.).

RELATED LITERATURE

Ceramic, Antica March 1997 in Enrico Caviglia Gallery, Bottega delle Amazzoni, Faenza;

De Marco dans M. P. Panarello, et.al., Da Venezia alla Calabria. la maiolica Seicentesca di Gerace riscoperta, Briatico, 2022, pp.38-5.