3 5D Deucalion and Pyrrha. P. 23, fol. 1 IR from Ovid, Metamorphoses
(Lyons, 1559). Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute, Special
Collections, inv. 85-B8407.shells, resemble the ex-Veneziani example. The gro
tesques on the basins in the British Museum, London,-
the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and the Musee du Lou
vre, Paris, copy various portions of du Cerceau's Petites
grotesques prints, with the grotesques on the former two
being identical.^11 Sources for the grotesques on the Getty
basin have not been identified.
Of great interest is the fact that the basin in the
Louvre belonged to a service made for Duke Alfonso II
d'Este of Ferrara which is convincingly attributed to the
slightly later Patanazzi workshop of Urbino, rather than
the Fontana.^12 The relationship between these two
workshops has yet to be fully examined and understood.
Professional as well as personal connections among
potters were common. It is known, for example, that
Giovanni Patanazzi married Nicola di Gabriele
Sbraghe's sister in 1515 (see no. 25) and that his son,
Antonio, appears to have collaborated with Orazio
Fontana on at least one occasion.^13 Whether the two
workshops shared tools and materials (including the
mold for this basin, for example) as well as a similar
painting style (composed of delicate grotesques on awhite ground) or whether the Patanazzi took over or
inherited the Fontana materials when Orazio died in
157 1 is not known.
Other basins of this shape—either produced in the
same or a similar mold as the six listed above but with
less precisely rendered painting—include examples in
the Museo Correr, Venice,- Museo Nazionale di San
Martino, Naples,- Musee du Louvre, Paris, deposited at
the Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau; and one that sold at auc
tion in 1981.^14Notes- When the objects entered the stock of Duveen Brothers in 1913 or 1914,
the price of the ewer was $5,000 and that of the basin was $719.44 (Du
veen 1876-1981, no. 960015, box 10, New York Stock, 1914-15, 153). - Duveen 1876-1981, no. 960015, box 20, New York Stock, 1926, sales
book folio 783. - Poke 2001, 332-44.
- Poke 2001, 332, 334.
- Spallazani 1979, in.
- Spallazani 1979, 115-18.
- Conti 1971 A, nos. 21, 48, 54. The Bargello collection includes twenty-
nine other related Urbino basins, pitchers, vases, plates, coolers, and
flasks traditionally identified as belonging to a service made for
Guidobaldo II (Conti 1971A, nos. 2-13, 15, 17-18, 24-25, 27, 34, 39,
44-46, 49-52, 57-58). - Spallanzani 1978, n 1-26; Spallanzani 1980, 78, 80-81, 84, 86. Other
pieces may have arrived in Florence from Urbino with Vittoria della Ro-
vere on the occasion of her marriage to Ferdinando II de' Medici in 1637
(Passeri 1758, chap. 13; Vita 1924-25, 171, 182 n. 15; Rackham 1940,
no. 846. See also Fortnum 1873, 321; Falke 1907, n-13; Spallanzani
1979, 111-12). - Hausmann 1974, pi. 35a.
- Wilson 1987A, 153, 241; Rasmussen and Watson 1987, no. 14; Louvre
inv. OA 1467; Giacomotti 1974 , 358, 361, no. 1081; sale cat., Christie's,
London, June 12, 1995, lot 367. - Poke 2001, 336, 341, 343-44, nos. 13, 18, 36.
- The loose, sketchy quality of this work's painted decoration is quite dif
ferent from the more precise designs of the Fontana and is associated,
rather, with ceramics made in the Urbino Patanazzi workshop
(ca. 1580-1625). - Negroni 1998, 105-7.
- Correr inv. no. 789 CI IV, no. no; Fittipaldi 1992, no. 652; Giacomotti
1974 , 258 (cited in entry for no. 1081); sale cat., Christie's, London, Feb
ruary 23, 1981, lot 130. This list of the so-called swan-back basins was
compiled by Timothy Wilson, and I thank him for allowing me to pub
lish it.
Basin with Deucalion and Pyrrha 197