Footed Dish with the Sacrifice of Noah

This dish depicts “The Sacrifice of Noah,” a composition taken from a fresco by Raphael’s (1483-1520) workshop in the Vatican. Raphael’s fresco was well known through an engraving of the scene by Marco Dente da Ravenna (1486-1527). Noah and his three sons gather around an altar, the front of which is inscribed SACHRIFIZIUM (sacrifice) and prepare to offer a burnt sacrifice to God for bringing them through the flood. At the right, Noah stands with one son who holds a sheep, while on the left, two sons prepare a second sheep and two men in the background pull an oxen and a camel. In order to adapt Raphael’s rectangular design to the round surface of a plate, the artist had to simplify the design. As a result, the figures appear stylized, reflecting the painter’s lack of anatomical knowledge. On the back, the surfaces outside the foot are covered with a scale-pattern outlined in blue and picked out with ochre. Inside the foot is a cartouche inscribed with the date 1524. The specific maker of this dish has not been identified. However, the red color used in the scene is characteristic of ceramic workshops in Faenza, a center for maiolica production in the first half of the sixteenth century. For more information on “maiolica” see 48.1336.

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Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

J. P. Morgan [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; A. Seligmann Rey & Co. [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1925, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.