Lot n° 79
Estimation :
4000 - 6000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 13 009EUR
Polychrome enamelled copper plate with gold... - Lot 79 - Coutau-Bégarie
Polychrome enamelled copper plate with gold highlights, translucent and opaque white enamels, representing the Nativity, two angels holding a phylactery with the inscription GLORIA IN.ESERCIS DEO: ET IN TERA.PAX; counter enamel in fondant.
Limoges, circa 1530, workshop of Jean II Pénicaud
H. 12.8 cm - L. 10.3 cm
In a gilded brass frame; collection labels (a few small cracks)
This very beautiful translucent plate has always been given to Jean Pénicaud the Elder. It was under this name that it was exhibited at the Petit Palais, and as such it was part of one of the most important collections of Haute-Epoque of the late nineteenth century, that of the Parisian dealer Michel Boy, of which the Louvre now preserves some works.
Jean I Pénicaud is indeed the one who first used the technique of silver paillon and translucent enamels except for the white ones as it is the case here. Moreover, the comparison with the triptych of the Nativity of the workshop of Jean I Pénicaud preserved in the Museum of Decorative Arts of Paris (inv n° GR5) allows to find common points in the way of applying the gilding, in the drawing of the stars and the treatment of the wings of the angels.
However, the calligraphy of the phylactery does not allow us to say that this work belongs to the corpus of the period of Jean I Pénicaud.
The plaques with inscriptions of John I are written in Gothic letters, and not, as here, with antique characters. The canons of the Renaissance are more advanced here. We can therefore cautiously attribute this plate to the workshop of Jean II Pénicaud who took over the technical and stylistic advances of his father while adding the modernities of his time.
Provenance:
- Collection Michel Boy (1844 - 1904), his sale, galerie Georges Petit, 15-24 May 1905, lot 194
- Private collection, Sotheby's sale, New-York, 12 January 1991, lot 55
- Collection Max Falk, Sotheby's sale, New-York, 17 October 2000, lot 61
Exhibition:
- Petit Palais, Paris, Exposition Universelle de 1900, rétrospective de l'art français des origines à 1800, cat. p. 294, n° 2781
Works consulted:
- P. Verdier, Enamels, Rugs, and Silver in the Frick Collection, New-York, 1977, p.57
- S. Baratte, Les émaux peints de Limoges, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2000
- M. Blanc, Emaux peints de Limoges XVe-XVIIIe siècles, la collection du Musée des Arts décoratifs, Les Arts décoratifs, Paris, 2011
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