A noble and fierce rampant lion holding a golden quince on a delicate stem with leaves, this impressive stemma is both emblematic of the proud Florentine families and exemplary of the della Robbia production. Stemmi, or coats-of-arms, were created to adorn the façades, courtyards and ceilings of important Renaissance buildings in which the requisite family or organization was active. They can still be found throughout Italy, and have served as lasting records of civil and political activity. In the later 19th and early 20th century, collectors, especially North Americans, the new Renaissance merchant princes, actively sought della Robbia and della Robbia style pieces and the present lot is, apparently, part of this group.

The present stemma, apparently unpublished, appears to be the coat-of-arms of Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro (1409-1473). Alessandro was the son of the founder of the Sforza dynasty, Muzio Attendolo, called Sforza (1309-1424), who in 1411 became count of Cotignola, a town which was known for the production of quince, but by 1402 he had already changed his coat-of-arms to a rampant lion holding a fruiting quince branch (Barovier Mentasi, op. cit., p. 180). The coat-of-arms with the lion holding the quince was adopted by Alessandro Sforza and his descendants while Alessandro’s legitimate half-brother, Francesco (1401-1466), who married the last Visconti heiress and became Lord of Milan in 1450, created the Lombard Sforza’s better-known coat-of-arms which incorporated the Visconti crowned snake swallowing a child, an image still today celebrated on the hood of every roaring Alfa Romeo.

There is a marble coat-of-arms, identical in shape and design to the present lot, in the Musei Civici, Pesaro and dated 1465 (inv. no. 3976 and Ibid. fig. 11, p. 181). Some of Alessandro’s coats-of-arms have a gilded or yellow lion, whereas the lion in the present lot is clearly argent or white, but, as Marquand notes when discussing the Sforza heraldry, tinctures in Italian heraldry were not as invariable as in Northern countries and the other details remain absolutely identical to Alessandro’s coat-of-arms (Marquand, op. cit., p. 134). Alessandro’s daughters, Battista Sforza (1446-1472) and Ginevra Sforza (1440-1507) also both continued to use their father’s coat-of-arms. Battista, who married Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, had the Sforza coat-of-arms included in frescoes at the Palace at Urbino and Ginevra, who married Giovanni Bentivoglio, had household items commissioned with her father’s coat of arms (Barovier Mentasi, op. cit., pp. 181-182).

Another example of the Sforza coat-of-arms, attributed to Andrea della Robbia’s workshop and dated circa 1502, are at either ends of the Cintola alterpiece, S. Fiora at Pieve. And Marquand notes this was probably commissioned for either Count Guido di Bosio di Muzio Sforza or his son Count Federigo (Marquand, op. cit., no. 162, p. 134).

This della Robbia stemma has, for decades, been traditionally identified as representing the Davanzati family. However, other extant della Robbia Davanzati stemmi all depict a yellow rampant lion, also on a blue background, but not holding a quince as the present stemma does. Several examples are the stemma of Lorenzo and Francesco Davanzati, by Andrea della Robbia of 1490, on the Campanile at Pistoia and the stemma by the workshop of Giovanni della Robbia, of circa 1490-1500, on the façade of the Palazzo Pretoria, Florence (illus. Marquand, op. cit., pp. 76-77 and R. Dionigi, Stemmi Robbiani in Italia e nel mondo: per un catalogo araldico, storico e artistico, Florence, 2014, no. 375). And, in none of them, is the lion holding anything.