Maiolica Collection

Plate with Diana and Actaeon

Avelli Francesco Xanto

Urbino, c. 1530

29.cm (diameter)

tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica)

This plate is an outstanding example of the work by the most interesting character in the history of Renaissance maiolica. Francesco Xanto Avelli came from Rovigo, near Padua, and had settled in Urbino by 1530. There, between 1530 and 1542, he painted a stream of works which he signed and dated more regularly than any other maiolica artist. He aspired to be a man of culture and a poet, and there is a manuscript of a sonnet sequence written by him in praise of Francesco Maria Della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, in the Vatican Library. He seems to have been a specialist painter, rather than a workshop owner like Nicola da Urbino or Guido Durantino, and his choice of a subject matter for maiolica is eccentric and ambitious, including allegories of contemporary politics and subjects from Classical history.

Inscribed on the reverse, Dov'alsuo am?te si Diana piacque. fabula (where Diana pleased her lover. A fable). Following the word fabula are two strokes of the brush resembling a y which are often found on work by Xanto in this period. Its significance, if any, has been much discussed; it may possibly represent "etc.".

At the bottom, between 6 o

Lent from a private collection.  LI192.1

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