Moses and Jethro

The centre of this enamel tazza depicts the relatively rare Old Testament scene taken from Exodus chapter 18. The story relates how, during their wanderings through the desert, Moses would sit and pronounce judgements upon any disputes among the Israelites. Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, seeing the crowds of people, told Moses that it was not good for himself or the people, and that he should appoint deputies to rule over groups of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, thus sparing himself the burden of too many petty differences among the people.

The composition of the central scene is identical to a grisaille enamel tazza in the Princeton University Art Museum (obj. no. 2001 272). However here the palette incorporates a range of blues and turquoises as well as a combination of opaque and translucent enamels. As Sophie Baratte has pointed out in her discussion of enamels signed 'ICDV', 'IC' and 'IDC' (op. cit., p. 317), the range of styles and palettes within this group suggests that they represent not individual artists, but a series of - likely interconnected - workshops that were producing enamels over a number of decades in the later 16th and early 17th centuries.