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拍品专文
The decoration of this plate illustrates the story of Damocles, an obsequious courtier in the court of Dionysius II, the tyrannical ruler of Syracuse in 4th century B.C. Sicily. Damocles declared the king to be very fortunate to have such power and magnificence, and in response, the king suggested that they should exchange places for one day. Once seated on the throne, Damocles realized that the king had arranged for a sword to be suspended from a single hair from a horse's tail above it, demonstrating the precarious nature of a ruler’s position. Damocles finally begged Dionysius to be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be in the 'fortunate' position of being king.
Including the present lot, five plates painted by Xanto with the Sword of Damocles story are known to have survived; a plate dated 1534 in a private collection (Timothy Wilson, The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica-Painting, Turin, 2018, pp. 246-247, no. 107, and E.P. Sani, ibid., 2007, no. 233; sold at Christie’s, London, 24 May 2011, lot 24, and Sotheby’s, London, 16 March 1976, lot 25), a currently unpublished lustred plate dated 1535 in a private collection, a plate dated 1536 in Lyon (Carola Fiocco, et al., Majoliques Italiennes du Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Lyon, Collection Gillet, Dijon, 2001, pp. 232-233, no. 156, and E.P. Sani, ibid., 2007, no. 310), the present lot painted in 1539 and a plate dated 1540 in Prague (Umeleckoprůmyslové Museum (11.571). Petr Přibyl (ed.), Terra [cotta]. Plastika a majolika italské renesance / Sculpture and Majolica of Italian Renaissance, Národní Galerie, Prague 2006, no. 16; Jirina Vydrová, Italská Majoliká, Umeleckoprůmyslové Muzeum v Praze, Prague, 1973, no. 50, and E.P. Sani, ibid., 2007, no. 379). The 1534 and 1536 plates are comparable, and the figures of Dionysus and the two servants are derived from the same prints and reversed. The treatment of the subject in the present lot is more elaborate, and Xanto has inserted two other additional figures.
Xanto used the figures from two prints as inspiration for the present plate. The figure of Dionysus on the right, the figure behind him on the right-hand edge of the plate, the servant boy in front of the table and the figure of Damocles are all taken from Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee, and reversed. Although it has previously been suggested that the figure of Dionysius is the same on all the plates, this is not the case. It has been suggested that the print source used for the figure of Dionysius may be the engraving The Father of Psyche Consulting the Oracle by Agostino Veneziano after Michiel Coxie, Bartsch XIV, p. 190, no. 235, although the transposition is not exact, cf. Timothy Wilson, ibid., 2018, p. 246, note 4. On the present lot, Dionysius is unmistakably taken from Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee. The figures of the two servants behind the table are adapted from one of the scenes in Quos Ego, engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi in 1516 after designs by Raphael depicting scenes from Virgil. The portion Xanto used was the bottom right-hand corner, which depicts Dido Entertaining Aeneas, and these figures have not been reversed.
In his A Guide to the Knowledge of Pottery, Porcelain, and Other Objects of Vertu, Comprising an Illustrated Catalogue of the Bernal Collection of Works of Art (op. cit., p. XII), Henry Bohn describes the present work in the most glowing of terms, "It is very fine and very perfect... The costume, the furniture of the table, and other incidentals of the tableau, give the plate an interest independent of its technical merits."
Including the present lot, five plates painted by Xanto with the Sword of Damocles story are known to have survived; a plate dated 1534 in a private collection (Timothy Wilson, The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica-Painting, Turin, 2018, pp. 246-247, no. 107, and E.P. Sani, ibid., 2007, no. 233; sold at Christie’s, London, 24 May 2011, lot 24, and Sotheby’s, London, 16 March 1976, lot 25), a currently unpublished lustred plate dated 1535 in a private collection, a plate dated 1536 in Lyon (Carola Fiocco, et al., Majoliques Italiennes du Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Lyon, Collection Gillet, Dijon, 2001, pp. 232-233, no. 156, and E.P. Sani, ibid., 2007, no. 310), the present lot painted in 1539 and a plate dated 1540 in Prague (Umeleckoprůmyslové Museum (11.571). Petr Přibyl (ed.), Terra [cotta]. Plastika a majolika italské renesance / Sculpture and Majolica of Italian Renaissance, Národní Galerie, Prague 2006, no. 16; Jirina Vydrová, Italská Majoliká, Umeleckoprůmyslové Muzeum v Praze, Prague, 1973, no. 50, and E.P. Sani, ibid., 2007, no. 379). The 1534 and 1536 plates are comparable, and the figures of Dionysus and the two servants are derived from the same prints and reversed. The treatment of the subject in the present lot is more elaborate, and Xanto has inserted two other additional figures.
Xanto used the figures from two prints as inspiration for the present plate. The figure of Dionysus on the right, the figure behind him on the right-hand edge of the plate, the servant boy in front of the table and the figure of Damocles are all taken from Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee, and reversed. Although it has previously been suggested that the figure of Dionysius is the same on all the plates, this is not the case. It has been suggested that the print source used for the figure of Dionysius may be the engraving The Father of Psyche Consulting the Oracle by Agostino Veneziano after Michiel Coxie, Bartsch XIV, p. 190, no. 235, although the transposition is not exact, cf. Timothy Wilson, ibid., 2018, p. 246, note 4. On the present lot, Dionysius is unmistakably taken from Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee. The figures of the two servants behind the table are adapted from one of the scenes in Quos Ego, engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi in 1516 after designs by Raphael depicting scenes from Virgil. The portion Xanto used was the bottom right-hand corner, which depicts Dido Entertaining Aeneas, and these figures have not been reversed.
In his A Guide to the Knowledge of Pottery, Porcelain, and Other Objects of Vertu, Comprising an Illustrated Catalogue of the Bernal Collection of Works of Art (op. cit., p. XII), Henry Bohn describes the present work in the most glowing of terms, "It is very fine and very perfect... The costume, the furniture of the table, and other incidentals of the tableau, give the plate an interest independent of its technical merits."