Note: This extraordinary tazza cover is one of the finest known works by Leonard Limosin. The upper scene is signed and dated 1536, the same year as the earliest known dated portrait by Limosin of a member of the French royal family, Eleanor of Austria, the second wife of Francois I. The sublime quality of the enamelling, which has been noted ever since it entered the collections of baron James de Rothschild in the nineteenth century, and the appearance of a seemingly unique scene of the meeting of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Francois I to the underside, suggest this may have been part of a royal commission. 

Limosin’s earliest known enamels were a series of plaques inspired by engravings of Albrecht Durer’s Small Passion series, finished in 1532. He was probably first introduced to the royal court by Jean de Langeac, the Bishop of Limoges, at some point between 1533 and 1536. Limosin's earliest dated works, such as a Crucifixion plaque (dated 1536, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, inv. no. 31-106) and a plaque of the Meeting of St Anthony Abbot and St Paul the Hermit (dated 1536 and bearing the coat of arms of Jean de Langeac, British Museum, inv. no. 1922,0707.1) are of notable quality. The present lid was previously paired with a cup (lot 28) depicting the arms of Castile and Aragon when in the de La Sayette and Norzy collections, but by 1866 the discrepancies in the style and fit of the cup and cover had been noticed by Labarte and they were listed separately. Verdier later affirmed the different origins of the cup and cover, after they had been re-paired when in the Rothschild collection. 

The top of the lid is covered by a scene depicting the Battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. In this Greek legend, at the wedding of Pirithous, King of the Lapiths, and of Hippodamia, the Centaurs became intoxicated and kidnapped and abused the young bride. At least part of the battle scene corresponds very closely to an engraving by Enea Vico (1523-1567), published in 1542, which Vasari notes was copied after a now-lost drawing by Rosso Fiorentino. It is not known when Rosso Fiorentino composed this drawing, however at this moment he was working on a large fresco of this subject for the Galerie Francois I at Fontainebleau, and it is possible he shared a drawing he made as part of these preparations with Limosin. However, Limosin’s inclusion of the word ‘INVETOR [sic]’ alongside his signature and the date 1536 suggests that the enameller was laying a claim to the invention of this scene at the time of its creation. 

On the underside Limosin depicted three scenes which intimate the cup held contemporaneous political symbolism. One of these scenes depicts a probably fictitious meeting of Francois I and Charles V. At the beginning of 1536, following the death of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, Francois I had renewed French claims to the Duchy of Milan, which they had lost a decade before to Charles V, and in February 1536 they invaded Northern Italy, starting the Italian War of 1536-8. Negotiations between the two sides continued throughout 1536 and the inscription that accompanies the other scene of banqueting figures (‘Friendship auspiciously reconciles the gods’) may reference these negotiations that had such importance for future peace in Europe. In the Renaissance the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs was commonly held to symbolise the conflict between order and chaos or the victory of civilization over savagery.