23
Dish with Am at a and
Turnus
Probably Faenza
ca. 1515-25
Tin-glazed earthenware
H: 5.4 cm (2 Vs in.)
Diam: 24.6 cm J9n/i6 in.)
84.DE.10 6
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS
On the underside, a crossed circle with a smaller
circle in each of the four quarters.CONDITION
Small hairline crack across the kneeling woman at
the lower left toward the center of the plate; minor
rim repairs; the male figure on the far right-hand
edge has been restored.PROVENANCE
Sold, Sotheby's, London, November 21, 1978, lot
42 , to R. Zietz; [Rainer Zietz, Ltd., London, sold to
the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1984].EXHIBITIONS
None.BIBLIOGRAPHY
GettyMusf 13 (1985): 241, no. 164; Hess 1988A,
no. 18; Summary Catalogue 2001, no. 361.THIS COPPA, OR FOOTED CONCAVE DISH, falls within
the transition to the so-called stile hello (beautiful style)
of the early sixteenth century, when istohato decoration
reached its height of popularity and pictorial sophistica
tion.^1 On the obverse is a finely painted scene of a king
seated on a high throne with groups of women and men
to his right and left, respectively. A winged putto stands
in the foreground holding a blank scroll that elegantly
echoes the scrolling supports of the throne. This istoh
ato piece is painted in blue, yellow, pale orange, pale yel
lowish green, pale purple, and opaque white on a pale
blue ground. Blue radiating leaves filled with concentric
dark ocher lines cover the reverse, encircling the foot.
On the underside of the coppa is a circle divided into
four sections, with a smaller circle in each of the four
quarters (fig. 23A). Since 1858 this mark has been
identified as the pyros rota (fire wheel), believed to be the
mark and punning device of the Faentine Casa Pirota
workshop.^2 However, this attribution was questioned by
scholars as early as 1880,^3 and recent scholarship has
cast further doubt on it.^4
Long misinterpreted as a betrothal scene, the coppa's
painted decoration appears to depict instead a debate
over a betrothal described in an episode from Virgil's
Aeneid, a work from which istoriato-ware subjects were
commonly drawn in the sixteenth century.^5 As re
counted in the Aeneid, King Latinus of Latium was ap
proaching old age without a male descendant. He did
have one daughter, Lavinia, who was sought in marriage
by many neighboring chiefs, including Turnus, king of
the Rutulians. Lavinia's parents favored this union, but
Latinus had been warned by his own father in a dream
that Lavinia's husband would be a foreigner and that this
union would produce a race destined to conquer the
world. This foreigner was Aeneas, who, after vanquish
ing Turnus in battle, claimed Lavinia as his wife.
The coppa's scene appears to be based on a passage
(bk. 12,11. 54-80) in which Amata (Lavinia's mother, the
kneeling woman in the foreground) pleads with Turnus
(the young warrior before her) to refrain from fighting the
Trojans for fear that he, her daughter's intended husband,
will die.^6 Lavinia (the hooded figure surrounded by at
tendants), hearing her mother's entreaty, is filled with
emotion, "her burning cheeks steeped in tears, while a
deep blush kindled its fire, and mantled o'er her glowing
face" (11. 65-67). Turnus then "fastens his looks upon
the maid; [and], fired more for the fray, briefly he ad
dresses Amata: 'Nay, I beseech thee, not with tears, not
with such omen, as I pass to stern war's conflicts, do
thou send me forth, O my mother[-in-law]; nor truly has
Turnus freedom to delay his death'"(11. 70-75). Latinus,
enthroned and holding a scepter, presides over the scene.
This scene from the Aeneid is so rarely depicted in
postclassical art as to be almost untraceable. However,
thanks to recent literary exegesis, its meaning on this
plate may not be so recondite.^7 The portrait of Amata in
the Aeneid is of a mother infuriated that her choice of
husband for her daughter is ignored. Later in the story, af
ter the scene outlined above, Amata becomes unhinged
when her husband does not take heed after she gentlyi34