Casteldurante dish, Picchi workshop, manner of... Lot 8

Casteldurante dish, Picchi workshop, manner of Andrea da Negroponte, c. 1550-1560 Majolica decorated in polychrome. Dimensions: height 4.2@@@ diameter 22 cm. Conservation: breaks on the brim between 2 and 6 o'clock reassembled in old restoration On the recto, full-surface, is historiated the mythical Ovidian episode of the challenge between Apollo and Pan, with the god of music on the left slinging a lyre from his arm and on the other the shepherd god in the act of playing in a syrinx: the two protagonists are cast in a rural setting, with trees, rocky boulders, a city in the distance overlooking an expanse of water and mountains in the background. On the verso, inside the foot, the legend "Apollo et panno" is traced in blue. The subject of this historiate is one of the most widely replicated by Andrea da Negroponte, starting with the very cup in the Museo Civico in Arezzo, which bequeaths his name. Possibly active in Casteldurante at the Picchi workshop in the decade 1550-60 (works dated at least between 1551 and 1557), he is a fecund artificer, displaying a singular graphic homogeneity of legends and very recognizable stylistic modes: rigid, somewhat angular anatomies, but also a certain chromatic vivacity and an undoubted ability for layout, here demonstrated in departing space with a tree in the center