The Judgement of Paris
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Title/s | The Judgement of Paris |
Maker/s | Durantino, Guido probably (workshop) [ULAN info: Italian ceramist, act.1520-1576]
Raimondi, Marcantonio after (engraver) [ULAN info: Italian artist, 1470/1482-1527/1534]
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Category |
tin-glazed earthenware
maiolica
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Name |
dish
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School/Style |
Renaissance |
Description | Maiolica dish, painted in polychrome with The Judgement of Paris. Earthenware, tin-glazed overall; the reverse pale beige. Painted in blue, green, turquoise, yellow, orange, stone, brown, manganese-purple, black, grey, and white. Shape 64. Circular with narrow rim and wide shallow well. The Judgement of Paris. Paris and his dog sit on the left. He hands the apple of discord to Venus who is accompanied by Cupid; Juno with her peacock stands behind them, and to the right is Minerva, who has her back to the viewer and holds up a drape; above, a winged Victory holds a wreath over Venus' head. To the left are three nymphs, including Paris' wife Oenone, and to their right, behind Paris, is Mercury, who is leaving; to the right, three river gods sit or recline beside the River Scamander. In the sky Apollo drives the chariot of the sun through a zodiac arch and on the right, emerging from a bank of clouds, Coelius supports Jove, seated with his eagle beside him and Diana and two other gods behind him. In the landscape background to left are two bulls and a nude woman with a unicorn, and in the distance, buildings and mountain peaks. The edge is yellow. |
Production Notes | The design was copied from the Judgement of Paris by Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael |
Production Place | Urbino (workshop) (place) The Marches (workshop) (region) Italy (workshop) (country) Italy (engraver) (country) () |
Technique Description | Earthenware, tin-glazed overall; the reverse pale beige. Painted in blue, green, turquoise, yellow, orange, stone, brown, manganese-purple, black, grey, and white. |
Dimensions |
height: (whole): 5
cm
diameter: (whole): 45.4
cm
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Period | mid 16th century
Renaissance
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Date | circa 1545 to 1550 |
Provenance |
bequeathed:
Harris, Frederick Leverton 1926 (Filtered for: Applied Arts collection) Possibly Charles Jarvis (?1675-1739); his sale, London, 11-20 March 1739 (OS),A catalogue of the most valuable collection of pictures . . . late of . . . Esq., deceased, lot 555. Lord Eldon, Scotland ?; Richard Ford (1706-1858),Heavitree, near Exeter, before 1850; Captain Ford; Christie's, 31 July 1919, Catalogue of porcelain, objects of art and tapestry from various sources, lot 43; F. Leverton Harris.
F. Leverton Harris Bequest, 1926
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Inscriptions/Marks | -
Position: on the back
Method: painted
Content: SORDENT.PRAE FORM/INGENIVM VIRTVS/REGNA.AVRV
Description:
Interpretation:
Language: Latin
Translation: Genius, valour, domination and wealth are despised in comparison to beauty
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label
Position: on the back
Method: handwritten in black ink
Content: Arms of Farnese impaling Crispi/of Rome./For Tiberio Crispi a familiar of/Paul III before his pontificate./created by him Cardinal in 1544/Achp of Amalfi 1547-61 bp of Sabina/& of Sutri when he died 1566
Description: rectangular paper label
Interpretation:
Language: English
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label
Position: on the back
Method: handwritten in ?
Content: M 68
Description: circular paper label
Interpretation: The dish's number in the Leverton Harris Collection
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Documentation | - Marryat, Joseph (1850) Collections towards a History of Pottery and Porcelain in the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries, London [page: 24]
[comments: Publ. Mentioned as being in the collection of Richard Ford (1796-1858), at Heavitree, near Exeter.] - Marryat, Joseph A History of Pottery and Porcelain Medieval and Modern, London [page: 83]
[comments: Publ. Mentioned] - Marryat, Joseph (1868) A History of Pottery and Porcelain Medieval and Modern, London [page: 105]
[comments: Publ. Mentioned as being in the collection of Richard Ford (1796-1858), at Heavitree, near Exeter.] - Borenius, Tancred (1925) Italian Maiolica in the Collection of the Right Hon. F. Leverton Harris, II, London [page: 322-3]
Source title: Apollo (June 1925)
[comments: Publ. See text p. 323 where attributed to Orazio Fontana, and pl. on p. 322.] - Borenius, Tancred (1931) The Leverton Harris Collection, London: Privately printed [page: 9]
[comments: Publ. Mentioned on p. 9 and illustrated pls. XIIID and XVI, top shelf on extreme left.] - Wilson, Timothy (1995) Art on the Table, London [page: 72]
Source title: Country Life (21 September 1995)
[comments: Publ. Illustrated in colour, p. 72, fig. 1.] - Poole, Julia E. (1995) Italian Maiolica and Incised Slipware in the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, Cambridge (Cambs.): Cambridge University Press [page: 360-4]
[comments: Publ. pp. 360-4, no. 403. Colour plate 44. For a full description of the dish, the sources of its design, its ownership, and comparable dishes.] - (1995) The Lady, London [page: 24-5] 3-9 October 1995)
[comments: Publ. Illustrated] - Poole, Julia E. (1995) Un secolo di recerche e donazioni/One century of Bequests and Acquisitions, [page: 16]
Source title: D'Artigianato (December 1995)
[comments: Publ. Reproduced p. 16, no. 1] - Tamplin, Anne-Noelle (1995) Potted History, London [page: 42]
Source title: The Antique Collector (Nov/Dec 1995)
[comments: Publ. p. 42, partially illustrated in article advertising the Fitzwilliam's maiolica exhibition of 1995] - Poole, Julia E. (1997) Fitzwilliam Museum Handbooks, Italian Maiolica, Cambridge (Cambs.): Cambridge University Press [page: 72-3]
[comments: Publ. pp. 72-3, no. 31] - (1998) The Fitzwilliam Museum, Annual Report 1997, Cambridge (Cambs.) [page: p. 21]
[comments: Publ. p. 21, illustrated, no. 24] - Robinson, Duncan (1998) The Fitzwilliam Museum 1848-1998, One Hundred and Fifty Years of Collecting, Cambridge (Cambs.) [page: 71]
[comments: Publ. p. 21, no. 24] - Scott, Paul (2001) Painted Clay, Graphic Arts and the Ceramic Surface, London: A. & C. Black Ltd [page: 23]
[comments: Publ. p. 23, with the printed source] - Panayotova, Stella (2008) I Turned It Into a Palace, Sydney Cockerell and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Cambs.): The Fitzwilliam Museum [page: 101]
[comments: Publ. p. 101, fig. 2.44, in colour] - Oberhuber, Konrad (1978) The Illustrated Bartsch: The Works of Marcantonio Raimondi and of his School, vols 26-27, New York: Abaris Books [page: 242-3]
[comments: Ref. The print by Marcantonio Raimondi which was the source of the design, no. 245-I, or no. 246, a copy by Marco Dente] - (1984) Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Rome [page: 801-3]
[comments: Ref. The most readily accessible source for the life of Tiberio Crispi (1497-1566)] - Panvinio, Onuphrio (1557) Epitome pontificum romanorum a S. Pietro usque ad Paulum III, Venice [page: 407]
[comments: Ref. For biography and arms of Cardinal Tiberio Crispi, see p. 407, no. 60, p. 409 (wrongly numbered 449), fig. LX] - (2002) Pierre Richard Royer Advertisement, Ferrara: Belriguardo [page: 5]
Source title: CeramicAntica (July-August 2002)
[comments: Cf. A large dish decorated with the whole scene of the Judgement of Paris, attributed to the Patanazzi workshop, c. 1580, exhibited from 20-29 September 2002 in the XXI Biennale des Antiquaires, Paris, by Pierre Richard Royer] - Sotheby's (2006) Fine French and C ontinental Furniture and Decorations, European Works of Art and Tapestries, Ceramics and Carpets, New York: Sotheby's [page: 16-17] 19 May 2006)
[comments: Cf. pp. 17, lot14, illustrated p.16, a large dish 43.2 cm in diameter with a roughly painted version of the design, described as Urbino but from the workshop of Domenico da Venezia. The Fitzwilliam's dish is mentioned and the example at Braunscheig. This dish was previously sold Sotheby's, London, 7 December 1971, lot 8, as from Pesaro, and Christie's, New York, 29 September, 1999, lot 11.]
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Other Notes | The Judgement of Paris, engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi after drawings by Raphael, was one of the prints most frequently used as a source by maiolica painters, but was rarely copied in its entirety as it is here. Paris is shown with the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite (Juno, Minerva, and Venus) who had been brought to him by Hermes with a message from Zeus that he was to award a golden apple to the fairest. Rejecting the bribes of power and wisdom offered by Hera and Athene, Paris awarded the apple to Aphrodite, who offered to assist him in gaining the love of Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, whose beauty was equal to her own. The inscription on the back of the dish referring to Paris' choice was also copied from the print.
The dish's owner, Cardinal Tiberio Crispi (1497-1566), was promoted to the cardinalate in December 1544 by the Farnese Pope, Paul III (ruled 1534-49). Like many cardinals, Crispi marked his promotion by impaling his arms with those of the Pope, so their presence on the dish indicates a date after December, 1544. Another feature which links the dish to Crispi is the nude woman with a unicorn which the painter inserted into the Judgement in the upper left background. This is believed to be an impresa adopted by Crispi, but might also refer to his links with the Farnese family who had four unicorn imprese, including a unicorn placing its front hooves in a maiden's lap. |
Accession Number | C.59-1927 (Applied Arts)
(Reference Number: 47187; Input Date: 2002-05-04 / Last Edit: 2010-01-19) |
