HE Giovanni Maria or his workshop. "Julius II" bowl, 1508. Tin-glazed
earthenware, Diam: 32.4 cm [n^3 A in.). New York, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Lehmann Collection, inv. 1975.1.1015.
of Art, Widener Collection, Washington, D.C. (fig. 22B).^10
That the putti on all four tondini appear before a land
scape reminiscent of Venetian lagoon settings would
support placing them within Giovanni Maria Mariano's
area of activity. These four pieces are so close in size and
design with comparably fine painting in a remarkably
brilliant palette that they may well have been part of a
single service; one scholar has even referred to the group
as the "playing putto series/^711 The porcelainlike gar
land on the reverse of three of the four plates is virtually
identical to the National Gallery tondino garland,
although running in the opposite direction and rendered
with a slightly finer line.^12
Other tondini with comparable decoration of central
figures surrounded by bust portraits or other heads or
trophies and grotesque decoration include one with a
putto riding a goose in the British Museum, London (inv.
MLA 1855, 12-1, 107);^13 a dish with Saint Jerome in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. C.2148-
1910);^14 a tondino with a putto holding a shield in the
boss formerly in the Pringsheim collection, Munich;^15
another showing a young man playing a lute in the
Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Lyons,-^16 and a plate depict
ing Leda and the Swan, formerly in the Alexander Barker
collection and currently on the Italian art market.^17
A pitcher in the Museo di Capodimonte, collezione
de Ciccio, Naples, and a vase in the Herzog Anton
Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig (inv. 379), display a can-
delieri^18 decoration with grotesques, cornucopias, putti,
and bead swags very similar to those on the Getty
Museum's tondino.^19
Most of the above-mentioned works have been at
tributed to Castel Durante of ca. 1510-20; Faenza and
Cafaggiolo, however, have also been suggested, as has
Venice.^20 Most recently, the "playing putto" series has
been attributed to Pesaro given the stylistic similarities
between the above-mentioned tondini and fragments ex
cavated at Pesaro and datable to the early sixteenth cen
tury.^21 A cornucopia, round putto head, grotesques, and
scrolling foliage finely painted in reserve on a dark
ground, as well as porcelainlike motifs found on these
fragments, relate very closely to the group of tondini to
which the Getty plate belongs.132 Plate with a Winged Putto