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Painter: Vulcan Painter (Probably)
Maiolica basin for ewer, painted in polychrome, with a fox and bear with a shield of arms in a landscape, a battle between centaurs and satyrs, and eight medallions painted with subjects from the Bible and Roman history surrounded by grotesques.
Pale buff earthenware, tin-glazed white overall. Painted in dark blue, pale blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and black.
Shape 69. Circular with sloping rim, upturned slightly at the edge; deep sides moulded with oblique reversed gadroons; flat centre with ribs encircling its outer edge and the emplacement for the ewer in the middle; low foot ring on the back.
The central medallion contains a landscape in which a fox attempts to wrest a shield from the possession of a bear. The bear holds a sword in its right forepaw and rests its left on the shield, which is of testa di cavallo form, charged with the arms per fess gules and argent, overall a tree eradicated. A scroll above is inscribed, 'E COSI VA CHE TROPO VOLLE' (This is what happens to him who wants too much). The rest of the base is decorated with a battle between male and female satyrs and centaurs. The gadroons on the sides are painted in blue with stylised plants. On the rim there are grotesques reserved in a blue ground, interrupted by eight oval medallions, painted with eight subjects from the Bible and Roman history: Marcus Curtius leaping into the chasm, Dido falling on her sword, David with the head of Goliath, Judith with the head of Holofernes, Mucius Scaevola thrusting his right hand into the fire, a woman with a shield, Horatius defending the bridge and, probably, the suicide of Lucretia.
The back is decorated in blue and yellow with a trophy of two crossed quivers, a bow, and an arrow, surrounded by delicate coiling blue stems with blue, orange, and green foliage. The footring is blue with an invected circle within it. The sides and rim are decorated with blue and orange horizontally striped petals between blue bands and there are two blue bands on the outer edge.
History note: Baron Lionel de Rothschild; Mrs Leopold de Rothschild; Alfred Spero, London.
Purchased with the Leverton Harris Fund and with a contribution from the National Art Collections Fund (now The Art Fund).
Diameter: 46.3 cm
Height: 5.5 cm
Method of acquisition: Bought (1946-07) by Spero, Alfred
16th Century
Circa
1520
CE
-
1530
CE
Decoration composed of high-temperature colours ( dark blue, pale blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and black)
Moulding
: Pale buff earthenware, tin-glazed white overall. Painted in dark blue, pale blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and black.
Tin-glazing
Accession number: EC.19-1946
Primary reference Number: 48362
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Basin" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/48362 Accessed: 2024-11-21 21:02:59
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/48362
|title=Basin
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-21 21:02:59|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/objects/object-48362
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa37/ec_19_1946_1_201106_mfj22_dc2.jpg"
alt="Basin"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Basin</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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