An important Vezzi vase painted by Ludovico Ortolani, circa 1725

Footnotes

The scenes are after engravings by Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630) of 1606, from a series illustrating Ovid's Metamorphoses, Metamorphoseon sive transformationum, published in Amsterdam by Willem Jansz between 1606 and 1620. The scenes are based on plate 96: 'Perdite a Venere adamatur Adonis (Venus and Adonis embracing, Bartsch XVII.151.733); and plate 70: 'Cephalus et iaculo inevitabili, et cane pernicissimo a Procride donatur' (Procris giving Cephalus a Dog and a Javelin, Bartsch XVII.151.707).

A bowl in the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham (inv. no. 1988.401/Cer., formerly in the Enid Goldblatt Collection, illustrated in this catalogue), is painted by Ortolani in the same style and palette with a related scene based on plate 69 of the same series by Antonio Tempesta, depicting Aurora and Cephalus.

A saucer in the British Museum (inv. no. Franks 450) painted in purple monochrome with a lady seated in a landscape accompanied by Cupid is the only recorded piece signed by Ludovico Ortolani and the basis for the attribution of a handful of pieces of Vezzi porcelain to the painter. The reverse is inscribed 'Lodouico Ortolani Veneto dipinse nella Fabrica di Porcelana, in Venetia.'; published by L. Melegati, Giovanni Vezzi e le sue Porcellane (1998), no. 69. A related teapot attributed to Ortolani in the Lokar Collection was published by Andreina d'Agliano (ed.), Italian porcelain in the Lokar collection (2013), cat.no. 20.

Only a handful of large Vezzi vases are recorded, all of different shapes and all smaller than the present one. The most widely-published is in the collection of the Palazzo Querini Stampalia in Venice, which is of a wide baluster shape with two handles and moulded stiff accanthus leaves. The decoration is in underglaze-blue with birds amongst flowering branches and polychrome strapwork. Another narrower baroque baluster vase is in the collection of the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, decorated with large winged putti in underglaze-blue, picked out in gold. The closest in shape are the three vases now in the Ludwig Collection, Bamberg, most recently published by Regina Hanemann (ed.), Goldchinesen und indianische Blumen. Die Sammlung Ludwig in Bamberg (2010), no. 179, which were previously illustrated by Nino Barbantini, Le porcellane di Venezia e delle Nove (1936), tav. XII (see illustration).