Manufacture of Limoges, 19th century

Manufacture of Limoges, 19th century

Triumph of Galatea

Enamel plate, 15 x 22 cm

This fine enamel plate is based on the traditional craft production of the city of Limoges, located in the current French region of New Aquitaine. Since the Middle Ages, Limoges has distinguished itself for the creation of precious artefacts and decorative objects made using various techniques related to goldsmithery, the processing of hard stones and metals: among the most famous is certainly the champlevé, Method of filling cavities dug into the metal using glazes and vitreous kneading. Also in this case we are faced with a type of processing that involves the use of enamel, of which the plate is precisely composed, but it would be reductive to mention this single material; in fact, the porcelain and maioliche produced in this city of the French south had an enormous success that allowed to maintain the manufacturing production of the center also during the nineteenth century and the twentieth century, until the Art Nouveau. From the medieval courts to the upper middle-class of the 20th century, passing through the aristocratic or cleric classes of the 16th century, a century in which the most famous artists of the Limousin school worked as Léonard Limosin, Pierre Courteys, Jean de Court and Pierre Reymond, the craftsmen were able to maintain high quality standards in the tradition and, at the same time, innovate their work both from a technical and material point of view as well as from the point of view of the subjects and objects made, It succeeded in arousing a new interest which grew during the 19th century among European and especially Parisian collectors. In this case, the reference to the great masters of the Renaissance, such as Raphael, is part of a culture that responds to the excesses and politeness of the Baroque and Rococo; The hints of a shift in classicist key, concretized between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which sought pure forms and a beautiful ideal were with the theories and artistic work of undisputed geniuses such as Canova, David and especially, as regards Raphael, Anton Raphael Mengs. The attention given to the masterpieces of the Urbinate involved not only Mengs but many other artists from his time, spreading images and a renewed taste for his works. The craftsmen of Limoges also seem to have caught this new taste, transposing it into this plaque that perfectly mirrors the Triumph of Galatea, a fresco painted by Raphael for Agostino Chigi in his Villa Farnesina in Rome in 1512. The fresco shows the apotheosis of the nymph Galatea riding on a shell-shaped carriage pulled by two dolphins and guided by the boy Palemone; in the waters below mythical figures related to the marine world, such as tritons and nereids, and watched, while in the sky three little love flies with bow and arrows pointed towards the nymph. The dominant shade is blue, which forms the background on which stands a golden sun just with shaded contours in fine grain; the sharp contours of the figures enclose a bright and iridescent white depending on the depth of the work, Useful to highlight a virtuosic chiaroscuro that gives three-dimensionality and tone to the characters. Some details, such as the coach, alternate golden shades, similar to those of the sun, that play in a harmonious triptych of colors with blue and white, able to give this artifact the preciousness of a jewel through, However, a representation that for details and layout has little to envy the pictorial genre.

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Ex. Tot. € 3.600 = Monthly instalment € 720 for 5 months.

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