Plate
Category
Ceramics
Date
1597 - 1600
Materials
earthenware, tin-opacified lead glaze, polychrome pigments
Measurements
240 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Urbino
Order this imageCollection
Knightshayes Court, Devon
NT 540413
Summary
Plate, earthenware with tin-glaze (maiolica), probably made at the Patanazzi workshop, Urbino, Italy, c. 1597-1600; painted with the arms of Imhoff with Baumgartner and Schmidtmayer of Nuremberg, surrounded by grottesche.
Full description
The Imhoff family was one of the most important European trading dynasties operating out of Nuremberg between the 15th and 17th centuries. This plate was part of a large table service, which also included ewers (Petits Palais, Paris, ODUT1086), ordered by Hans III Imhoff (1563–1629), after the death of his first wife Anna Maria Baumgartner von Holenstein (d.1597), and his second marriage to Anna Maria Schmidtmer von Schwarzenbruck in the same year. The service bears both their coats of arms. For a discussion of the armorial and the relevant marriages, see Johanna Lessmann, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig: Italienische Majolika (Brunswick, 1979) Cat. No. 265; Tjark Hausmann, Majolika: Spanische und Italienische Keramik vom 14. bis zum 18., (Berlin, 1972), Cat. No. 224-5; and Johanna Lessmann, “Italienische Majolika in Nürnberg,” in Silvia Glaser (ed.), Majolika: Die italienischen Fayencen im Germanischen Nationalmuseen Nürnberg: Bestandskatalog, Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 2004, pp. 236–264. Formerly in the collection of Sir William Stirling-Maxwell (1818-1878), 9th Bt., of Keir, Perthshire, and later also Pollok, near Glasgow, Scotland. Much of the Maxwell and Stirling family wealth came from West Indian plantations with enslaved African labour for which they received compensation in 1833. Stirling-Maxwell formed the largest collection of Spanish art in Britain, some of which remains at Pollok House, as the contents were gifted to Glasgow Corporation in 1967. Highlights of his maiolica collection was sold by his grandson Lt. Col. William Joseph Stirling (1911-1983) of Keir, Perthshire, Scotland, at Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of Fine Italian Majolica, 18 June 1946, the third of four items in lot ‘71 An Urbino bowl with turnover rim, painted with “groteche” motifs and in the centre with a seated figure of a woman, 8 ¼ in.; a Plate with Venus and Cupid : another with armorials, 9 ¼ in. ; a large Dish with Cupid in a hilly landscape and “groteche” and “candelieri” motifs “a quatieri”, 16 ½ in., Patanazzi workshop, second half 16th Century.’ The lot purchased for 12 guineas (£12 11s. 12d.) at the sale, by "Sir J Amory", Sir John Heathcoat-Amory (1894-1972), 3rd Bt., of Knightshayes Court.The house, part of the collection, the garden Sir John and Lady Heathcoat-Amory created, and part of the estate were bequeathed to the National Trust by Sir John Heathcoat-Amory in 1972. The maiolica was later given by Joyce, Lady Heathcoat-Amory (1901-1997), née Wethered, a celebrated golfer.
Provenance
From Lady Amory