Current Location: Gallery 6 (Upper Marlay): case 3, shelf B
Titles
Atalanta's Race against Hippomenes
Maker(s)
Painter:
Manara, Baldassare
Pottery:
Unknown
Entities
Categories
Description
Maiolica plate, painted in polychrome, with Atalanta's Race against Hippomenes.
Pale buff earthenware, tin-glazed overall. There are two glaze faults on the back. Painted in blue, green, yellow, orange, brown, manganese-purple, stone, and black.
Shape approximately 54 but shallower. Circular with a wide slightly sloping rim and shallow sloping rim and shallow well.
Atalanta's Race against Hippomenes. On the right, King Schoenius sits on a stool with two attendants standing behind him. Hippomenes and another youth race towards him from the left, while Atalanta stoops to pick up a golden apple thrown down by Hippomenes. In the landscape background are a castle, two smaller buildings and a bridge, a clump of trees, and distant mountains. Here and there on the grass there are pebbles and plants with one four-petalled flower. In the foreground there is a cartouche containing a kite-shaped shield charged with the arms or, a griffin segreant to sinister sable, in chief an inverted label of four points gules (shown orange) with three barrels (?) gules (shown orange) above. The edge of the plate is yellow. The back is inscribed in the middle in dark blue, `MD/XXX/IIII/>B
Notes
History note: Dr Alfred Pringsheim; Sotheby's, 19 July 1939, Catalogue of the renowned collection of Italian majolica, the property of Dr Alfred Pringsheim of Munich, lot 256.
Legal notes
Purchased with the Glaisher Fund
Measurements and weight
Diameter: 22.8 cm
Height: 2.7 cm
Acquisition and important dates
Method of acquisition: Bought
(1939)
by
Sotheby's
Dating
16th Century
Renaissance
Production date:
AD 1534
: dated
Note
The story of how Hippomenes won Atalanta's hand in marriage by defeating her in a race is told in the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses, X, 560-680.The scene on the dish was partly adapted from the woodcut entitled 'DE HIPPOMENE ET ATALANTA' in Tutti gli libri de Ouidio Metamorphoseos tradutti dal litteral in uerso vulgar con le sue Allegorie in prosa, Venice (Niccolo Zoppino and Vincenzo di Polo (Giacomo da Lecco)), 1522. The two figures standing behind the King were probably after figures on the extreme right of the print of Parnassus by Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael.
School or Style
Renaissance
People, subjects and objects depicted
Components of the work
Decoration
composed of
high-temperature colours
( blue, green, yellow, orange, brown, manganese-purple, stone, and black)
Materials used in production
Tin-glaze
Earthenware
Techniques used in production
Tin-glazing
: Pale buff earthenware, tin-glazed overall. There are two glaze faults on the back. Painted in blue, green, yellow, orange, brown, manganese-purple, stone, and black.
Inscription or legends present
- Text: M D/XXX/III/>B<M
- Location: On base
- Method of creation: Painted in dark blue
- Type: Inscription
References and bibliographic entries
Related exhibitions
Identification numbers
Accession number: EC.23-1939
Primary reference Number: 80701
Stable URI
Audit data
Created: Saturday 6 August 2011
Updated: Monday 25 March 2024
Last processed: Tuesday 2 September 2025
Associated departments & institutions
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
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