A Italian parcel-gilt silver standing dish, Venice, 16th century

Provenance

Sotheby's, Geneva, 8 May 1989, lot 61.

This standing dish relates to a collection of early Italian silver (Sotheby's, Paris, 25 November 2010, lots 358-362) belonging to a family which for many generations had lived in the Aegean island of Patmos. Amongst these pieces was a ewer with the same unidentified incuse И marks as those on the current lot. A third occurrence of these marks is on a further ewer in the Art Institute of Chicago. Furthermore, the foot on the present lot, with ovolo and bead ornament, is identical both to that on the Chicago ewer and a standing dish in the Sotheby's 2010 group (lot 359).

Although Patmos was not part of the Venetian empire in the 16th century, Venetian influence in much of the silver is not surprising. The Ottomans, to whom Patmos owed allegiance through tax, allowed it considerable freedoms and recognised for example the Monastery of St. John's historic title to land in Crete. Crete was at the time part of the Venetian empire. There was also an important influx of Cretans to Patmos in the middle of the 17th century when Crete fell in 1669 to the Ottomans.

Two further Venetian dishes with the same radiating fluting were sold Sothebys, Paris, 26^th April 2017, lot 259 and Sotheby's, London, 1 November 2017, lot 706.