Basin for a ewer decorated with five scenes from Genesis: M.111-1961

Titles

Basin for a ewer decorated with five scenes from Genesis

Maker(s)

Maker: Reymond, Pierre
Printmaker: Lucas van Leyden (After)

Entities

• Basin
• Limoges painted enamels

Categories

• Enamels

Description

Copper enamelled en grisaille with five scenes from Genesis and gilded. Initialed PR.

Copper enamelled on both sides in grisaille with pale greyish-pink flesh tones over a black ground, and gilded. The front has also a little red and blue enamel. Circular with a sloping rim with raised outer edge, deep sides, gently curved well and central boss.
The boss has an almost flat medallion bearing a beribboned shield charged with the arms, quarterly 1 and 3 chequey gules and or, and 2 and 4, azure, a hound’s head, in chief, a label of three points and in base, a crescent or . This is surrounded by a raised white band decorated with black dots and continuous scalloping, a black cavetto with gold scrollwork, a band of black guilloche on a white ground, and tiny gold circles on a black band. Around this are five scenes from Genesis: the Creation of Eve, labelled ‘I’; the Fall of Man, labelled ‘II’; God admonishing Adam and Eve labelled ‘III’, initialled PR in black on the ground; the Expulsion from Paradise, labelled ‘GENESE III’; the Killing of Abel by Cain, labelled ‘IIII’. On the sides there is a repeating design of gold foliated scrolls on a black ground, and on the rim, pairs of foliated scrolls, each one terminating in a cornucopia, with a putto astride it, with sprays of gold foliage in the background.
On the reverse, the underside of the boss has a black ground, decorated with eight addorsed C- scrolls surrounded by scattered stars. On the back of the well there are four female terms linked by a continuous wavy drape, and holding up between them four dishes of fruit. Below each of which is a pair of affronted male and female monsters with wings and scrolling tails. Round the edge is a narrow and a broad band which rises into a small arch below the monsters. On the sides there are gold foliated scrolls on a black ground, and on the rim, foliated scrolls terminating in small monsters’ heads and shells.

Notes

History note: Baron Gustave de Rothschild (1829-1911); Sir Philip Sassoon, Bt., MP, CMG and the Countess of Rocksavage; Christie’s, 26-27 November, 1919, Catalogue of objets of art, porcelain & faience and fine French tapestry, the property of Sir Philip Sassoon, Bart, M.P., C.M.G., and of the Countess of Rocksavage, p. 10, lot 74; George Durlacher; Christie’s, 6-7 April 1938, Catalogue of Italian maiolica bronzes & objects of art, French and Italian furniture of the Renaissance, tapestry and textiles sold by order of George Durlacher Esq., p. 12, lot 32, illustrated opposite; the Fitzwilliam’s copy of the Catalogue is inscribed ‘‘Bt by Durlacher at his sale at Christie’s, by L.C.G. C.’; Louis Colville Gray Clarke, MA, LL.D, Cambridge.

Legal notes

Louis.C.G. Clarke Bequest, 1960

Place(s) associated

• Limoges ⪼ Haute Vienne ⪼ France

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1960) by Clarke, Louis Colville Gray

Dating

16th Century, third quarter#
Circa 1555 CE - 1565 CE

Note

Label text from the exhibition ‘Feast and Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500–1800’, on display at The Fitzwilliam Museum from 26 November 2019 until 31 August 2020: This large basin is exquisitely decorated with scenes from Genesis, showing the key role of food in Man’s fall from grace to his first acts of sin: The Creation of Eve with abundant food freely given in the Garden of Eden; The Fall of Man when Eve is tempted toeat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, tempting Adam to do likewise; The Admonition, God’s earlier instruction to Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge; The Expulsion from Paradise of Adam and Eve that resulted in humankind being condemned to work for their food; and Cain killing Abel, when Cain, an arable farmer, murders his younger brother Abel, a shepherd, because God had preferred Abel’s sacrifice of lambs to Cain’s offering of grain.

Large shallow basins with a central boss were used with ewers for hand washing, although it seems more likely that this was used for display because of the fragility of enamel. The five scenes from Genesis were taken from a set of six engravings by Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533), dated 1529, but are not in the correct order: the Creation of Eve, God admonishing Adam and Eve, the Fall of Man, the Expulsion from Paradise, and Cain Slaying Abel.Here, the Admonition, God’s instruction to Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, appears to have been mistaken for God reprimanding them after they had done so. This, and the labelling of the scenes I, II, III, GENESE III and IIII, suggests that the painter was familiar with Claude Paradin’s, 'Quadrins historique de la Bible', Lyon (Jean de Tournes), 1553, 1555 or 1558 editions which have the Admonition between the Fall and the Expulsion, and use Roman numerals to identify the scenes. These scenes were popular as decoration for the interior of ewer basins from at least 1557 until the mid 1560s. There are four initialled and dated examples at Waddesdon Manor Buckinghamshire, initialled ‘P.R’ twice, and dated 1557;) in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, initialled ‘P.R’ and dated 1558 twice, and bearing the arms of de Mesmes on the underside of the boss; dated 1558, in the Tucher-Schloss Museum, Nuremberg, initialled ‘PR’ and dated ‘1558’ separately twice on the back of the rim and forms part of the garniture known as the Tucher-Service which belonged to Linhard I Tucher of Nuremberg (1487-1568); and in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, initialled PR and dated 1563 on which the enameller used only four of the Lucas van Leyden prints and made up the figures for the Admonition. Philippe Verdier considered that the Fitzwilliam’s basin was probably earlier than the one at Baltimore. A further ewer dish, unseen, described as having ‘grisaille scenes symbolizing the Fall of Man with explanatory inscriptions’, and initialled and dated P.R. 1570, was exhibited by D.C. Marjoribanks, MP in the exhibition held in the South Kensington Museum in 1862. There are several undated circular basins, such as two in the Los Angeles County Museum, and one formerly in the collection of Gustaaf Hamburger, sold in 2008 (see Documentation) An oval basin for a ewer in the British Museum has the scene of Cain killing Abel on the boss, and is signed and dated in separate panels on the reverse of the rim ‘P.REXMO’ ‘1561’. Another was formerly at Luton Hoo.

The unidentified coat of arms on the Fitzwilliam’s basin occurs on three small plates in the Louvre, decorated with scenes representing May, June, and September from a set of Labours of the Months (MR R 173 (formerly N 1370), MR 2436 (formerly N 1371) and MR 2435 (formerly N 1372), attributed by Baratte to Jean Court dit Vigier. The arms appear below the scene in the well, rather than on the rim. However, when the Fitzwilliam's basin was illustrated by an engraving in the journal 'L’Art' in 1878, it was shown without a central boss, which suggests that the arms were a later insertion (see Documentation).

School or Style

Renaissance