Jean de Court, called Master I.C. (active 1555-1585) Limoges, circa 1568

Pyramus lying beneath a white mulberry tree near a cool spring, the startled Thisbe running towards her lover with arms outstretched and her breast pierced by a golden sword, a lioness retreating in the background, the whole set in a wooded scene with Babylon in the distance, surrounded by a border of grisaille scrolls and garlands flanking four flesh-tinted grotesque masks, the reverse with three caryatids, alternating with torches and holding scrollwork, heightened with gilding

The scene of Pyramus and Thisbe is based on a woodcut by Bernard Solomon 'La Metamorphose d'Ovide Figurée', first  published by Jean de Tournes in Lyon in 1557. The reverse of the present plate can be closely compared to two other plates dated to circa 1568 by Müsch (nos.112 & 115 respectively). The design with the three caryatids and torches within scrollwork is reproduced with very few deviations. This reverse design is also found on a plate with a scene of Joseph Receiving his Brothers, illustrated in Kugel (op.cit., no.12) and on one with the Rape of Europa in the Louvre (inv.no.R302).

Scholars are now generally agreed that Jean de Court, Jean Court, Jean Courteys, Jean Courtois, I. Curtius, Master I.C. and Master I.D.C. are all one and the same artist. He was probably the same Jean de Court who was painter to Charles Bourbon, prince de la Roche-sur-Yon in 1553 and to the widowed Mary, Queen of Scots, from 1562-1567. He took over from François Clouet (d.1572) as peintre du roi to Charles IX.

RELATED LITERATURE
Irmgard Müsch, Maleremails des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts aus Limoges, Braunschweig, 2002, pp.227-231
S.L. Caroselli, The Painted Enamels of Limoges, A Catalogue of the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1993
J. Kugel, Emaux de Limoges de la Renaissance, Paris, 1994, pp.64-67