The plaque, with black border, presents a composition based on Raphael with the Virgin sitting in a meadow, the Child in her lap and the infant John the Baptist, both of whom are holding a cross. The three figures stand out against the background of a drape hanging in front of a brick wall, beyond which we see a mountainous landscape beneath a flaming sky of red and yellow, dotted with small clouds. The very high quality of the painting reveals the hand of Nicola di Gabriele Sbraghe, known as Nicola da Urbino, the most important maiolica artist of the Renaissance.¹ Nicola was active between 1520, when he is documented for the first time in Urbino, and 1537. He died in the winter of 1537-38 and his workshop was sold by his widow to Vincenzo Andreoli, the son of Giorgio Andreoli da Gubbio. A reconstruction of his catalogue has been developed on the basis of the five known works bearing his name, namely a cup dated 1521, now in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg; a fragment in the Louvre; and three plates, one dated 1528 in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, one previously in the church of Santo Stefano in Novellara (with an inscription describing Nicola as a painter and not only the owner of a workshop) and one in the British Museum in London.

The artist has been attributed with two of the finest Renaissance services, one now in the Museo Correr, Venice, and the other commissioned for Isabella d’Este in 1524 by her daughter the Duchess Eleonora Gonzaga, wife of Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, specifically for the villa at Porto Mantovano. In 1533, he also produced a service for Isabella’s son Federico, Duke of Mantua, and his wife Margherita Paleologo.

The plaque is one of the few pieces by Nicola with lustre decoration: the gold lustre highlights the drape, the blue hills, the contours of the figures and the cross, marking out the sandals worn by the young John, while the red lustre is used to outline the haloes, the clouds lit up by the sunset and the clasp that holds John’s fur in place. This piece can be compared with other devotional plaques attributed to Nicola, the closest of which is the one recently purchased on the American antiques market by Michel Vandermeersch and exhibited in Urbino.²

In the handwritten inventory of the Cerruti Collection dated 1993, the plaque is placed in the first bedroom and described as “Polychrome maiolica tile, Madonna and Child with the Young St John”.

[Cristina Maritano]

¹ For a description of Nicola, see WIlson T. 2018.

² For comparison with other panels by the same artist, see PaolInellI 2012.