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Francesco Xanto Avelli

Broad-rimmed bowl with Neptune raping Theophane; arms of Pucci with an "ombrellino", 1532

West Building, Ground Floor — Gallery G14

Medium

tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica)

Dimensions

overall (diameter): 26.3 cm (10 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.345

Artists / Makers

Francesco Xanto Avelli (artist) Italian (Rovigo), active in Urbino, c. 1486/1487 - after 1542

Image Use

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Inscription

center reverse: .1532. / Rape i castro Nettu / Basali nimpha. / Nel .VI. Li: de Ovidio Met: / fra: Xanto .A. / da Rovigo, i / Urbino. [Neptune in the form of a wether rapes the nymph Basalis. In book 6 of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Francesco Xanto Avelli of Rovigo in Urbino]

Marks and Labels

Kann collection labels 18, 187; "Arms of the FAMILY PUCCI" (now in object folder, NGA Curatorial Records)

Provenance

Count Ferdinando Pasolini dall'Onda, Faenza, in 1852.[1] Maurice Kann [1839-1906], Paris; purchased 1908 with the entire Kann collection by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); purchased February 1910 by Peter A. B. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from the Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, 1942.

[1] Luigi Frati, Del Museo Pasolini in Faenza (Bologna, 1852), 15, no. 54. This piece has not been identified, however, in the catalogue of the sale at which much of the Pasolini collection was dispersed: Catalogue d'une belle collection de majoliques italiennes..., Paris, 13-15 December 1853.

Associated Names

Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Kann, Maurice
Pasolini dall'Onda, Ferdinando, Count
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Exhibition History

1982: Sixteenth-Century Italian Maiolica; Selections from the Arthur M. Sackler Collection and the National Gallery of Art's Widener Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1982-1983, no. 50, repro.

1995: Le dressoir du Prince: Services d'apparat à la Renaissance, Musée national de la Renaissance, Ecouen, France, 1995-1996, no. 11, repro.

Technical Summary

Earthenware, covered front and back with a white tin glaze. The painting is in blue, brown, yellow, orange, green, purple, turquoise, black, and white; the green and purple have bubbled slightly. On the rim near the edge are four kiln-support marks. The plate has been broken into several pieces and repaired with broad areas of overpaint, especially in bands across the center from ten to four o'clock and from seven to one o'clock, and on the rim from nine clockwise to one o'clock and between three and four o'clock. The plate was already noted as damaged when described by Frati in 1852.

Bibliography

1852: Frati, Luigi. Del Museo Pasolini in Faenza. Bologna, 1852: 15, no. 54.

1935: Inventory of the Objects d'Art at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, The Estate of the Late P.A.B. Widener. Philadelphia, 1935: 65.

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 14, as Urbino (Francesco Xanto Avelli da Rovigo).

1983: Wilson, Carolyn C. Renaissance Small Bronze Sculpture and Associated Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1983: 121, no. 3.

1988: Triolo, Julia. "Francesco Xanto Avelli's Pucci service (1532-1533): a catalogue." Faenza 74 (1988): part 1: 41, no. 17; part 2: 254-255, pl. 43.

1989: Rasmussen Jörg. The Robert Lehman Collection, 10. Italian Majolica. New York and Princeton, 1989: 255-256, fig. 80.9.

1993: Distelberger, Rudolf, Alison Luchs, Philippe Verdier, and Timonthy H. Wilson. Western Decorative Arts, Part I: Medieval, Renaissance, and Historicizing Styles including Metalwork, Enamels, and Ceramics. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1993: 205-209, color repro. 207.