LARGE ROUND PLAT, DERUTA, 16th CENTURY, 1544 in majolica with polychrome decoration in the centre of a standing man soaping a donkey sitting on an armchair bearing the inscription "chi lava il capo al asino se p de ogni fatigha 1544", the rim decorated with foliate scrolls and scale motifs in compartments, the reverse with ochre glaze. (Accidents) D 43 CM - D 16.9 IN. A LARGE ROUND DISH, DERUTA, 16TH CENTURY, 1544 The inscription on the chair refers to a medieval Italian proverb "E inutile lavare la testa all'asino" (it is useless to wash the head of a donkey) and probably means that he who washes the head of a donkey loses all effort. An undated Deruta dish with similar decoration is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, in the Robert Lehman collection. The inscription on the chair is slightly different: 'Chi lava el ch[a]po a l'asen[o] se perderanno el sapone' (He who washes a donkey's head wastes the soap). See Jörg Rasmussen, The Robert Lehman Collection. Vol. 10, Italian Majolica, 1989, p. A number of other dishes by Deruta illustrate other proverbs, see for example the dish from the former Pringsheim collection in the Musée du Louvre decorated with The Fox Preaching Seven Geese (Majolica - Italian Majolica in the Age of the Humanists (1480-1530), cat. exp. Musée de la Renaissance, Château d'Écouen, 12 October 2011 - 6 February 2012, Paris, 2011, p. 142, no. 80 and Jeanne Giacomotti, Catalogue des majoliques des musées nationaux, Paris, 1974, no. 476). See also Timothy Wilson, Dora Thornton, Italian Renaissance ceramics: a catalogue of the British Museum collection, 2, London, 2009, p. 434.