- Museum number
- 1860,0616.39
- Description
-
Cassandra prophesying the downfall of Troy, design for a maiolica dish; with a border decoration of putti, masks and a camel
Pen and brown ink
- Production date
- 1513-1561
- Dimensions
-
Height: 410 millimetres
-
Width: 400 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lit: J.A. Gere and P. Pouncey, 'Italian drawings in the BM, Artists working in Rome', London, 1983, no. 129
Gere & Pouncey 1983
Attributed to Franco in the Lawrence-Woodburn Sale Catalogue. Popham was certainly right in describing the drawing as a design for maiolica. Vasari (vi, pp. 581ff.) relates how, after the failure of Franco's attempt to decorate the vault of the choir of the cathedral in Urbino with a large-scale fresco of the 'Coronation of the Virgin' had led his patron, Duke Guidobaldo II, to the conclusion that though he was a skilful draughtsman his talents were better suited to designing on a small scale, he was commissioned to make drawings for "coloro che lavoravano eccellentemente vasi di terra a Castel Durante, i quali si erano molti serviti delle stampe di Raffaello da Urbino e di quelle d'altri valent'uomini". This last sentence implies - as seems indeed to have been the case - that decorators of maiolica had hitherto been satisfied with adapting such already existing compositions as were readily to hand in the form of engravings, and that Franco was the first artist to make designs especially for the purpose. Vasari goes on to say that the Duke sent a service decorated on Franco's designs to his brother-in-law Cardinal Farnese, and a double one ("una doppia credenza") to the Emperor. Franco's activity in this direction must date from not earlier than 1546 (the fresco in the Cathedral was nearly completed by the summer of that year) and - if confined to Urbino - not later than c. 1550, when he seems to have returned to Rome. In 1554 his presence is documented in Venice, where he seems to have spent the rest of his life. A document dated 7 Dec. 1551, mentions, among other works executed by Franco for the Duke, "40 historié ... per una credenza" (Gronau, doc. clxxxvi).
Popham did not identify the subject. Our suggestion that it could be Cassandra prophesying the destruction of Troy was confirmed by the inscription, "DA INDOVIN SPIRTO CASSANDRA AGITATA", on the underside of a mid-sixteenth-century dish decorated with the same composition and apparently a product of the Fontana workshop (Clifford and Mallet, op. cit., fig. 51). Mr Clifford and Mr Mallet adopted our observation that Franco evidently designed a service of maiolica decorated with scenes from the Trojan War, and added to the nucleus of the series already assembled a number of other compositions in the form of drawings or pieces of maiolica.
Altogether twenty-one such compositions have now been brought together. In addition to 1860,0616.39 these include 1946,0713.350, which bore an old attribution to Orazio di Paris Alfani but was given by Popham in the Fenwick Catalogue to Franco on the strength of a comparison with 1860,0616.39. We cannot see the hand of Franco himself in the drawing, though the composition is certainly his. The drawing is probably a record of a design by Franco (not necessarily a tracing, as Mr Clifford and Mr Mallet suggest) made for use in the maiolica factory. The composition occurs on a dish acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1973, on the underside of which is the same inscription as on the drawing "IL RE TROIAN RICEVE HELLENA BELLA" (Clifford and Mallet, op. cit., fig. 47).
Literature A.E. Popham, OMD, ii (1927-8), pp. 21f.; J.A. Gere, Burlington, cv (1963), p. 306; T. Clifford and J.V.G. Mallet, Burlington, cxviii (1976), p. 405.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1860
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1860,0616.39
