Dish
by ANDREOLI, Giorgio, Lustred tin-glazed earthenware, diameter 25 cm
The picture on the dish is a rare illustration of the myth of Cyparissus from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, arranged within a Mediterranean landscape. The composition is comprised of three crucial moments from the fable culminating with Cyparissus’s metamorphosis into a cypress tree at bottom left.
Beginning around 1490, Giorgio Andreoli directed a maiolica workshop in the town of Gubbio in Central Italy. A favourite of the Duke of Urbino as well as Pope Leo X, Maestro Giorgio was renowned for his unusual lustre technique that applied additional metallic colourings prior to the second firing, thus enriching and enlivening each piece’s vibrancy.