Netherlandish, Mid-18th Century

Sir Yehudi Menuhin, London (1916-1999);

Sotheby's London Olympia, 11 May 2004, lot 420;

Peter Petrou, London:

Pelham Galleries, London;

From whom acquired by Aso O. Tavitian at the International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show, Park Avenue Armory, New York, 27 October 2005.

The subject of the current relief, Orpheus charming the animals from Ovid's Metamorphoses, was a popular motif in art from Northern Europe during the last quarter of the 16th century and onward. In England, overmantels depicting the same scene dated to the late 16th/early 17th century can be found at Longford Castle, Wiltshire and Hunwick Hall, County Durham.

Carved panels, such as the present work, were often based on Netherlandish ornamental prints, and this example is reminiscent of the engraved work of Adrian and Hans Collaert (after Jan Snellinck, 1549-1638) and the designs of the mannerist silversmith Adam Van Vianen (1569-1627) and his circle. The reclining dog in the lower right is the exact reverse of the dog appearing in the foreground of Albrecht Dürer's famous woodcut of St. Eustache.

RELATED LITERATURE

I. Weber, Deutsche, Niederländische und Franzöische Renaissanceplaketten 1500-1650, Munich 1975, nos. 946, 948;

A. Wells-Cole, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, London 1997, fig. 225-226, 309-310.