Italian Ceramics: Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection

7,

27

Plate with Hero

and Leander

Faenza

ca. 1525

Tin-glazed earthenware

H: 3.8 cm (1V2 in.)

Diam: 44 cm (IJVIS in.)

84.DE.113

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS

On the reverse, in the center, a swan.

CONDITION

Minor repair to the upper border; several chips in

the rim.

PROVENANCE

Henri Gautier, Paris (sold, Hotel Drouot, Paris,

May 4, 1929, lot 28, to G. Durlacher [according to

sale cat. notation]); [Durlacher Bros., London]

(sold, Christie's, London, April 6-7, 1938, lot 26,

to H. S. Reitlinger); H. S. Reitlinger, Maidenhead

(sold by his executors, Sotheby's, London, April 2

1959, lot 142, to R. Strauss); Robert Strauss,

England (sold, Christie's, London, June 21, 1976,

lot 24, to R. Zietz); [Rainer Zietz, Ltd., London,

sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1984].

EXHIBITIONS

None.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chompret 1949, 2: fig. 458; Christie's Review

J976, 397; Morley-Fletcher and Mcllroy 1984, 36,

fig. 5; GettyMusJ 13 (1985): 241, no. 165; Hess

1988A, no. 26; Summary Catalogue 2001, no. 366.

THE WELL OF THIS LARGE DISPLAY PLATE [piatto da

pompa) is decorated with a scene from the story of Hero

and Leander in pigments of green, yellow, black, ocher,

orange, grayish green, opaque white, and gray (produced

by painting white on black). The wide rim is decorated

with scrolling foliage, cherubs^7 heads, and "man-in-the-

moon" motifs reserved in light blue with touches of

white and cobalt blue on a berettino glaze ground. A cen­

tral swan, possibly a maker's mark consisting of the

artist's or workshop's rebus, surrounded by two concen­

tric bands of alia porcellana decoration in light and dark

blue and white (fig. 27A), embellishes the reverse.

The istoriato scene on the obverse tells the sad story

of Hero, priestess of Venus, who fell in love with Lean­

der, a youth from Abydos. According to this myth,

Leander would swim across the Dardanelles from Aby­

dos to Sestos every night to visit his beloved in her

tower. When Leander was drowned one night in a tem­

pest, the despairing Hero threw herself from the tower

into the sea and perished. Once thought an impossible

feat, the swimming of the strait between Asia and Eu­

rope was proved possible when Lord Byron actually per­

formed it himself and recounted it in his poem "The

Bride of Abydos."^1

Leander is painted three times on this plate, so that

his story unfolds in a continuous narrative. The tower

from which Hero gazes seems to project awkwardly from

the sea, evidence that the artist miscalculated the com­

position and attempted to rectify the error by painting

over the bottom portion of the tower with blue pigment

to widen the expanse of water. This interesting mistake

illustrates that once the artist applied pigments and

glazes, changes—if they were not to be perceptible—

could be made only by completely washing off the

painted scene and applying the colors anew.

In both style and color the painted decoration on this

plate is similar to that on works attributed to the "Green

Man." First identified in 1873, this artist was given his

sobriquet because he painted his figures with yellow pig­

ment over a light blue ground, resulting in green-toned

flesh.^2 Bernard Rackham attributed to this artist a series

of works dating from 1524 to 1550,^3 including a bowl

dated 1529 and inscribed "made in the workshop of Mae­

stro Piero Bergantino."^4 More than one artist is almost

certainly represented in Rackham's Green Man group.

Stylistic similarities also exist between the painter of

this plate and other artists active in Faentine potteries in

the first decades of the sixteenth century, such as those

Rackham nicknamed the "Master C. I." and "Master

Gonela" (see no. 23),^5 as well as works from the "Casa

Pirota" workshop.^6 This loose conformity of style is not

surprising given the active yet insular nature of potteries

working in the same small town.

The figure of Leander in the left foreground of the

Getty plate derives from the figure of a struggling nude

woman in a drawing by Luca Signorelli in the Musee du

Louvre (fig. 27B).^7 The drawing loosely relates to figures

in the Preaching of the Antichrist fresco of 1500-1504

in the San Brizio chapel of Orvieto cathedral.^8 It is

not known whether the Faentine maiolica artist of the

Getty plate had the actual Signorelli drawing in front of

him when he decorated the plate,- it may be more likely

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