Urbino cup, second half of the 16th century Majolica.... Lot 12

Urbino cup, second half of the 16th century Majolica. Dimensions: height 5@@@ diameter 28.2 cm. Conservation: upper part between 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock broken into several fragments and reassembled in restoration@@@ minor chipping and restoration to rim. The bowl has a wall moved by ribs ending in pods. On the recto, full surface, is historiated the biblical episode of Joseph at the moment when his brothers, instead of killing him, sell him to Egyptian merchants. On the verso within the foot, of which only the circular attachment remains, is traced, in blue cursive, the legend Joseph and the brothers. Painted in polychrome. Although the "historiated" scene bears no marks or hallmarks, but only the didactic legend relating to the subject, it expresses all the full and refined pomp of Urbino production in the second half of the 1500s, in which the fertile workshop of the Fontana family dominated. It makes this work rightfully enter such an artistic context, the constant balance between the complementary parts, especially in the background and in the background (rocky peaks, tree-covered hills, inevitable embankment in the foreground with a hint of water basin, etc.), and the figurative masses, with figures with slender anatomies and posed in harmonious poses that are influenced by the silographic model that had inspired them: almost certainly one of the vignettes included as an accompaniment to one of the many illustrated Bibles, especially those published in Lyon from the mid-1500s, which exerted so much influence on Italian majolica workshops