Results: 1
-
View: Detail
-
-
- Wine cooler
- Workshop of Flaminio Fontana (active between: 1571-1591)
- Urbino, Italy
-
- Date: 1574
- Medium: Tin-glazed earthenware, painted
- Height: 40 cm
- Width: 62 cm
- Length: 71 cm
- Inv: C107
- Location: Smoking Room
Copy and paste the URL below to share this page:
- Description
- Provenance
- Marks/Inscriptions
-
- Probably made for Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, this monumental wine cooler bears his device of a turtle with a mast on its back, illustrating his motto, Festina lente (Hasten slowly). The inscription on its base indicates that it was made in Flaminio Fontana’s maiolica workshop in Urbino in 1574; Cosimo died in April 1574. Wine coolers were kept on or below a buffet, filled with ice, snow or cold water, to keep wine cool during meals. The decoration of this exceptionally large cooler combines white-ground grotesques, vigorously sculpted monsters and a Roman naval battle scene derived, unusually, from a drawing. The water-based theme was appropriate to a wine cooler.