Italian, Urbino, circa 1540-60

The Fountaine Collection, Narford Hall, Norfolk, probably acquired by Sir Andrew Fountane (1676-1753), inv. no. I:161;

The Celebrated Fountaine Collection of Majolica, Christie's London, June 17, 1884, lot 182 (£27.6s to S. Montague) (Listed in the second day’s sale as: Lot 182 An Urbino Dish, with sunk centre, Europa in a landscape, Jupiter in the clouds on the left, description on the back—10 1/2 in.)

Andrew Moore, ‘The Fountaine Collection of Maiolica’, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 130, No. 1023, June 1988, p. 445, listed.

The Fontaine Collection included three Urbino dishes painted with subject of Europa (sold in the 1884 sale as lots 168, 169 (current whereabouts unknown) and lot 182 ( the present dish). Lot 200, a large Patanazzi Maiolica ewer basin, depicting Europa and the Bull, and Cadmus and the Dragon, subsequently entered the William A. Clark Collection and is now in the National Gallery of Art, accession number 2014.136.310.

In 1835, Andrew Fountaine IV (1808-1873) upon the death of his father Andrew Fountaine III and his inheritance of Narford Hall, drew up an inventory of the Octagon Closet which housed the family’s collection of Maiolica. According to the inventory the room included “200 pieces of the ancient earthenware called Raphaels” and “about 200 pieces of the old French enamel on Copper”. The inventory was ordered by shelf and by object type, and were listed where applicable by the inscriptions on the backs of the objects. On ‘Shelf III, Small Raphael ware dishes’, one dish, simply described in the inventory as ‘Europa’, is recorded as item 43. This entry must represent the present dish, or lot 168 from the 1884 sale, which was also inscribed on the back.

The subject of the current plate, Europa and the Bull, is a Greek myth, with the earliest reference to it found in the Iliad. In this telling, Europa was a Phoenician princess who caught Zeus's eye. To seduce her, he decided to transform into a bull and join her father's herd. When Europa saw the beautiful white bull, she approached the animal and began petting him, unaware of its true identity. As she climbed on its back, Zeus whisked Europa away to Crete, where he revealed himself and crowned Europa his Queen.

Another plate, with the same subject and similar composition is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. ¹

¹T. Wilson, Italian Maiolica and Europe: Medieval, Renaissance and Later Pottery in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford, Oxford, 2017, no. 75