A PLATE, CASTELDURANTE OR URBINO, CIRCA 1520-1530 PLATE, CASTELDURANTE OR URBINO, C. 1520-1530 faience painted in cobalt blue, antimony yellow, bistro and manganese brown; h. 5.5 cm, diam. 31.8 cm, foot diam. 13 cm Provenance Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Succession de Madame d'Yvon, 1892 (no. 41); Paris, Drouot-Richelieu Auction, 4 May 1993, lot 55; Turin, private collection Comparative Bibliography J. Rasmussen , Italian Majolica in the Robert Leheman Collection, New York 1989, pp. 100-101, no. 62; F.A. Dreirer, J. Mallet, The Hockemeyer Collection. Majolica and Glass , 1998, pp. 230-231; D. Thornton, T. Wilson, Italian Renaissance Ceramics. A catalogue of the British Museum Collection , London 2009, pp. 370-371, no. 217 The flat chopping-board dish, without a cavetto, rests on a barely visible apoda base, the glaze is creamy white and covers the entire surface. The candelabra decoration, with shields, helmets and lorike linked together by fluttering ribbons, is executed in savings, then shaded with grey mezzotint on a ground laid in parallel cobalt blue brushstrokes. Starting from the bottom, there are two broad cartouche elements in the form of opposing curls, centred by a spherical element; higher up are two grotesques with pointed ears, whose tails curl in the centre and then open at the sides into cornucopias full of fruit, framing in the centre an emblem with a single-headed eagle on a yellow background; at the top a bearded mask. Necklaces of pearls encircle the necks of the grotesques, connecting them to the cornucopias, while leafy elements and secondary decorations complete the ornamentation. A thin yellow line marks the rim, while the back is undecorated. A cup conserved in the Museum of Pesaro and datable to 1548, accompanied by the presence of musical scores (M. Moretti in P. Dal Poggetto, I Della Rovere: Piero della Francesca, Raffaello, Tiziano , Milan 2004, p. 485 card XV.28), is very close to our exemplar and provides us with a good comparison, but lends itself to a more in-depth interpretation given the presence of music, while for our exemplar it is the heraldic-military motif that seems to be more important. A middle ground between the two decorative choices is represented by a cup with candelabra, trophies, coat of arms and musical scores at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (inv. no. C2224-1910) (D. Chambers, J. Martineau, Splendours of the Gonzaga , London 1981, card no. 198. J. Mallet attributes the work to Casteldurante or Urbino): the Gonzaga emblem, with crowned eagles on a silver background, dominates the centre of the composition, above a musical score and surrounded by grotesques: this cup, probably from Urbino, can be dated to 1525. A recent hypothesis suggests that this type of work was also produced in the city of Venice, based on the fact that Cipriano Piccolpasso, in concluding 'il terzo libro dell'arte del vasaio' (The third book on the art of the potter), suggests that candelabra decoration had its own good market in the Venetian city, where emigrants from Casteldurante and Pesaro were in any case used to work. Piccolpasso himself, however, when mentioning trophies, tells us that 'they were made more for the State of Urbino than anywhere else': the military theme was indeed dear to the Montefeltro and Della Rovere families. For this type of work, the studies of John Mallet are fundamental, who draws up a list of plates bearing the same decorative style (F.A. Dreirer, J. Mallet, The Hockemeyer collection. Maiolica and Glass , 1998, pp. 230-231), while for an attribution to a workshop in Urbino, possibly by Nicola da Urbino, see what has been said by Rasmussen (J. Rasmussen, Italian Majolica in the Robert Leheman Collection , New York 1989, pp. 100-101 n. 62) and by Wilson and Thornton in their more recent studies (T. Wilson, D. Thornton, Italian Renaissance Ceramics. A catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London 2009, pp. 370-371 no. 217). The dish came on the market in 1993 with an attribution to Casteldurante and reference to thermoluminescence analysis (Oxford 481 U73), traces of which are preserved on the back of the foot. The card proposed a reading of the emblem as attributable to Montefeltro or, based on a similar emblem in the Louvre Museum, as the emblem of the Sabatini family of Rimini. The eagle retains the morphological characteristics of the Montefeltro emblem on a gold field: the heraldic eagle conveys the meaning of majesty, victory, sovereign power. A certain affinity with coinage, in which a single eagle may appear, points us towards a field of research to be further investigated, but it is also interesting to note the suggestion that the emblem of the coat of arms of Valente Valenti Gonzaga of Mantua and his wife Violante Gambara of Brescia bears two eagles on a gold background adorning the head of the shield, by concession of the Marquises Gonzaga in 1518, thus changing the background field from silver to gold (T. Wilson in R. Ausenda (ed.), Musei e Gallerie di Milano. Museo d'Arti Applicate. Le ceramiche, I , Milan 2000, pp. 182-184 no. 193). There is an interesting comparison with a jug in the Urbania museum dated 1558 with the same emblem, confirming the use of the eagle decoration in the Duchy of Urbino and particularly in Casteldurante (C. Leonardi, La ceramica rinascimentale metaurense , Roma 1982, p. 68 fig. 51). On the other hand, the eagle on a gold field appears variously associated in several heraldic emblems, not least that of Guidobaldo II della Rovere (T. Wilson, The Golden Age of Italian Maiolica Painting. Catalogue of a Private collection, Turin 2018, pp. 326-329 no. 142) or in the emblem of the Mazza family (T. Wilson, op. cit. pp. 366-368 no. 163). It should however and more simply be considered that the emblem with the eagle was already present in Roman times as a symbol of command and perhaps in this case the eagle could be read in association with trophies (G. Gerola, L'aquila bizantina e l'aquila imperale a due teste , in "Felix Ravenna", 1934, fasc. I, XLIII, pp. 7-39).