Italian, Venice, 15th century

The present dish is an example of the later of two types of Venetian enamel production: liturgical objects commissioned by goldsmiths made with translucent enamels of a silver background and purely decorative objects made with a technique of painting in camaïeu on gros bleu background with highlighting in gold. 

With painted enamels (in contrast to other techniques such as cloisonné and champlevé), the object, usually made of copper, is covered in a layer of white, opaque enamel and then fired.  It is then gradually decorated with coloured enamels, which each require different firings.  The earliest surviving painted enamels are Netherlands (c. 1425) and by the early 16th century, the French city of Limoges had become the centre for painted enamels on copper.  Renaissance Venetian enamels of this type are painted using a technique derived from Netherlandish and Burgundian enamel and are both exquisite and rare.

RELATED LITERATURE
P. Verdier, Walters Art Gallery, Catalogue of Painted Enamels of the Renaissance, Baltimore, 1967, pp. 4-8