A DISH, WORKSHOP OF MASTRO DOMENICO AND COWORKERS, CIRCA 1570 PLATE, VENICE, BOTTEGA DI MASTRO DOMENICO, 1570 CIRCA faience decorated in polychrome with cobalt blue, antimony yellow, orange yellow, copper green, manganese brown. On the back iachob inscription in manganese; diam. cm 30, foot diam. cm 11, h. cm 5.5 Comparison bibliography A. Franco Loiri Locatelli, The Church of San Michele al Pozzo Bianco, no. 12-13, in "La Rivista di Bergamo," June 1998; J. Lessmann, Italienische Majolika aus Goethes Besitz. Bestandskatalog, Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Goethe-Nationalmuseum, Stuttgart 2015, pp. 217-230; E. K. Swietlicka, Venetian Majolica in Polish Collections. New attributions, iconography, interpretations, in "Italian Renaissance Majolica. Studies and Research," Proceedings of the International Conference, Assisi September 9-11, 2016, edited by G. Busti, M. Cesaretti, F. Cocchi, Turnhout 2019, pp. 120-121 The dish has a deep cavetto and wide oblique brim with a rounded rim, and rests on a low ring foot in the center of which the inscription iachob is outlined in cobalt blue italics; the back is lined in yellow to emphasize the forms, except for the foot. The front of the plate, painted in full polychrome, features an historiated scene: in the center foreground are two figures near a tree, on the left is a rocky backdrop, and on the right above is a depiction of a town, while the background is filled with a lake landscape with mountains with rounded contours and a sunset sky. The two characters, a man wearing a Turkish headdress and an angel, are depicted in the act of wrestling with each other, a scene that refers to one of the most difficult episodes in the Old Testament (Genesis, 32:25), that of the Theomachy, or the struggle between Jacob and God: Jacob returning from Canaa, on the bank of the river Jabook, fights throughout the night and until dawn against a mysterious adversary; although wounded in the hip, he eventually receives his blessing by acquiring the name Israel, by which his descendants will be recognized. The work, in style and decoration, can be considered one of the best interpretations on open forms from the workshop of master Domenico, a probable product of one of the masters who worked there. It should be remembered that historiated plates with decoration characterized by only one or a few protagonists in the center of the composition are usually small in size, while this work, with a considerable diameter, stands out above all in quality. The subject, which probably derives from Bernard Salomon's engraving published by John of Tournes in Lyon in 1554 in the volume Figures from the Old Testament, with Tuscan verses, for Damian Maraffi newly composed, iliustate, has over time been variously interpreted in the Venetian sphere, and it is curious how the artistic expression that seems to us to be most akin is that halted in the fresco by Giovanni Battista Guarinoni d'Averana, author of the pictorial cycle created in 1577 for the presbytery of the Church of San Michele a Pozzo Bianco in the Bergamo area, bearing witness to the same cultural humus.