Urbino cup, Francesco Durantino (attr.), in the... Lot 7

Urbino cup, Francesco Durantino (attr.), in the workshop of Guido di Merlino, c. 1545 Maiolica. Dimensions: height about 5.5 cm@@@ diameter 23 cm. Conservation: good@@@ restoration to rim particularly between 2 and 5 o'clock and between 11 and 13 o'clock Smooth concave cup resting on low flared foot. In the center, in the foreground, is depicted the "Baptism of Christ," in the Jordan River: above is the dove of the gospel story, and on a hillock, to the left, is painted a pair of naked, seated figures following the scene. Enameled back. Painted in full polychrome. The work can be traced back to the manner of Francesco Durantino 1), for the shaded color scheme of the bodies, which have rather majestic anatomies, for the landscape with trees showing fronds with lance-shaped leaves or a hook, etc. : a very close stylistic comparison for the cup under consideration is represented, for example, by a plate depicting "The Continence of Scipio," datable to about 1545, in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. We note a cup entirely similar in both form and iconography, only more simplified by the absence of the pair of naked, seated figures following the scene on a hummock 2). The master is an itinerant painter and one of the most prolific painters on majolica in the mid-sixteenth century. He has been active in Urbino since at least 1537, where he signed works with initials or marked in the workshop of Guido di Merlino, in which he painted together with such masters as Fedele Fulmine and Luca Baldi: works that are now in the Museums of Vienna, Glasgow, Schwerin, Bristish in London, etc. A large basin in the Art Insitute in Chicago signed by Francesco as "Made in Monte Bagnolo," a locality north of Perugia, in 1553 should be remembered of him. In Monte Bagnolo the same workshop was also in the hands of the aforementioned Fedele Fulmine and then from 1547 to 1556 by our Durantino, who would later be the same one referred to as "Francesco de Nannis" of Castel Durante, finally attested as a majolica maker in Rome in 1575. 1) WILSON T., The maiolica painter Francesco Durantino: mobilty and collaboration in Urbino istoriato, in Proceedings of the conference "Italienische Fayencen der Renaissance Ihre spuren in internationalen Museumssammlungen," edited by Silvia Glaser, Nuremberg 2004, pp. 111-145. 2) ANVERSA G., La collezione Francesco Franchi, vol II, Borgosesia 2007, card 13, p. 44