Decorated in relief with the goddess Diana sitting amid a pack of her hounds, holding a bow in her right hand and an arrow in her left, her left arm around the neck of a stag, the border decorated with masks of satyrs, cornucopiae and winged cherubic masks between eight wells, the underside mottled blue, green and manganese, the reverse with printed labels inscribed ‘P. 48 /E. de R./43’ for Édouard de Rothschild and ‘Einsatzstab R nr. 4137’
19³⁄₄ in. (50 cm.) diameter

Possibly Baron Brunet-Denon collection (1778-1866), his sale; Paris, 2-9 February 1846, lot 452.
Prince Pierre Soltykoff collection, his sale; Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Me Pillet, 8 April-1 May 1861, lot 537, sold for 7.665 francs to Baron James de Rothschild.
Baron James de Rothschild (1792-1868).
Baron Édouard de Rothschild (1868 –1949).
Confiscated from the above by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg following the Nazi occupation of France in May 1940 (ERR no. R 4137).
Recovered by the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Section from the Altaussee salt mines, Austria, and transferred to the Munich Central Collecting Point, 18 June 1945 (MCCP no. 77/4).
Returned to France on 9 January 1946 and restituted to the Rothschild family.
By descent to the present owners.

Alfred Tainturier, Les terres émaillées de Bernard Palissy inventeur des rustiques figulines, Paris, 1863, p. 90, no. 66 and pl. II.
Franck, L’Art ancien, photographies des collections célèbres, Paris, 1868, Vol. IV.
Collection de Mr. Le baron Alphonse de Rothschild, circa 1890, (n.d.), vol. II, pl. 21.
Germaine de Rothschild, Serge Grandjean, Bernard Palissy et son école, Paris, 1952, pl. 11, no. XVIII.

Paris, Palais de l’Industrie, Union Centrale des Beaux-Arts Appliqués à l’Industrie, Musée Rétrospectif, 1865, no. 846, belonging to Baron James de Rothschild.

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Lot Essay

The scene is inspired by the Fountain of Diana, also known as the Diane d’Anet, a Mannerist marble sculpture of the goddess Diana representing Diane de Poitiers. Created circa 1550, it was the central ornament of a grand fountain in a courtyard of Diane de Poitier's Château d’Anet. The sculpture is now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Only two other dishes of this model appear to be recorded. One is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (museum no. 1977.216.4). Before entering the museum, it was in the collection of Andrew Fountaine, (Fountaine sale, Christie's, London, 16-19 June 1884, lot 239, sold for 840 pounds to Lowengard Frères), in the collection of Frédéric Spitzer (his sale, Paris, Me Paul Chevalier, 17 April-16 June 1893, lot 590, sold for 10,800 francs), in Charles Stein's collection (his sale, Paris, 9 June 1899, lot 14, sold for 16,000 francs), then in the J. Pierpont Morgan collection, Katherine Deere Butterworth collection (sale, Parke-Bernet, 21 October, 1954, lot 312) and R. Thornton Wilson collection. The other dish of this model, in Mrs. Heugel's collection and formerly in the Maginac collection, was exhibited in 1932 in the Pavillon de Marsan, Musée du Louvre, at the exhibition La Faience française de 1525 à 1820, April-June 1932, no. 37. A dish with Diana, which may very possibly be one of the three recorded today, was in the collection of Baron Brunet-Denon (1778-1866), nephew of Dominique Vivant-Denon, sold in 1846 (Baron Brunet-Denon collection (1778-1866), his sale, Paris, 2-9 February 1846, lot 452: 'Grand plat rond avec bas-relief representant Diane, la bordure à salière est ornée de mascarons, Diam. 50 cm').

COMPARABLE LITERATURE
Alexandre Sauzay, Henri Delange, Carle Delange and C. Borneman, Monographie de l'oeuvre de Bernard Palissy suivie d'un choix de ses continuateurs ou imitateurs, Paris, 1862, pl. 51.
La Faience française de 1525 à 1820, April-June 1932, exhibition catalogue, Pavillon de Marsan, Musée du Louvre, no. 37.