Maiolica dish: The Departure of Ceyx
Unknown Artist
- Art Funded
- 2006
- Dimensions
- Diameter: 29 cm
- Vendor
- Marquess of Cholmondeley
This dish is one of the first maiolica dishes to be painted in the istoriato (narrative) style.
The dish portrays a scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book 11, in which King Ceyx ignores the pleas of his wife Alcyone and sets out on a voyage on which he will be drowned. It is set within an elaborate border featuring putti, fruit and flowers, vases, and cornucopias.
Provenance
Baron Gustave de Rothschild, Paris by 1865; by descent.