Two Alternative Designs for a Dish, One with a Battle of Marine Creatures, the Other with a Bacchanal

The traditional attribution to Baldassare Peruzzi recorded in the old inscription on the drawing was followed until several scholars, including Philip Pouncey (unpublished opinion recorded in the curatorial file, 1958 and 1968) and John Gere (unpublished opinion recorded in the curatorial file, 1962 and 1976), noted a stylistic proximity to the work of Perino del Vaga, yet realized that it was not an autograph work by that master. In a note on the mount dated 1991, Nicholas Turner suggested the present attribution to Prospero Fontana, with which Florian Härb is inclined to agree (oral communication, 2001). The work of Fontana has not been entirely clarified but several related sheets by Fontana in support of such an attribution are known. These include a study in the Uffizi of the Contest of the Pierides and Muses, preparatory to a fresco in the Sala del Granduca, Palazzo Firenze, Rome ¹.

The drawing is probably a design for a large maiolica or silver embossed piatto da pompa, that is, a dish used for display rather than practical use. The shape of the represented bowl and the marine and Bacchic themes are suggestive of a wine cooler, for which, however, the dish does not seem deep enough.

Footnotes:

1. Uffizi, Florence, inv. 12602F; Di Giampaolo 1989, 190, no. 90; Fortunati Pietrantonio 1986, 1: 376.