Venus and Cupid

From the workshop of Mastro Giorgio Andreoli of Gubbio
majolica lustreware dish
1520-1525 ca

This charming majolica lustreware dish features Venus holding up Cupid’s bow, high out of reach of the mischievous child. It appears to be a nocturnal setting which is unusual in majolica but reminiscent of another majolica dish featuring Morte di Dido (1522 - The Death of Dido) belonging to New York’s Metropolitan Museum collection which bears the trademark of the ceramicist Mastro Giorgio of Gubbio. The iconographic source is an interesting puzzle: the nude Venus resembles but doesn’t seem to have been directly inspired by the works of Marcantonio Raimondi and his followers.

Cupid’s unusual, wingless pose has some points in common with a drawing attributed to Giulio Romano but, given the latter is dated to the 1540s, this must be a fluke. Nonetheless some production by Giulio Romano may have inspired this composition; there is evidence that the Roman painter’s drawings could have been seen by majolica painters in the Urbino area as early as 1522.