Monstrance. Italian, Venice, late 15th Century. photo Sotheby's

partially gilt painted enamel on copper, 26cm., 10¼in. Estimate 8,000-12,000 GBP - Lot Sold: 17,500 GBP.

PROVENANCE: Ernest Brummer Collection, sold Galerie Koller, 16-19 October 1979, vol. I, lot 263

NOTE: An analogous monstrance was sold for €121,000 in the Collection Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergé sale at Christies, Paris, 25/02/09, lot 612.

Italian enamels of the late-fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-centuries can be divided into two categories. The first being items of the type produced by contemporary goldsmiths, and the second being purely decorative objects produced by craftsmen in Venice using a technique of painting in camaieu on a gros bleu background.

The present fine examples of Italian enamelling fall into the second category of object, which are chiefly painted blue, white and green and tend to be articulated with elaborate decorative forms painted in gold. The gadroons adorning the dome of the present monstrance can be seen on many Venetian enamels of the period, including on the knop of a reliquary in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore (Inv. 44.171). This reliquary compares closely with the present piece and is articulated with very similar gold motifs, including the same leaf pattern, which can be seen running beneath the dome of the present monstrance.

Late-fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century Venetian enamels can be closely related to contemporary glassware produced on the lagoon islands, most notably Murano. Decorative gadroons can witnessed in gadrooned glass goblet vases of the same period, whilst fluting, another feature often associated with Venetian enamels, can be seen in Murano coppe costolate (enamelled white glass) ribbed cups. Like these glass objects, Venetian enamels would have been seen as expensive luxury commodities, with production doubtless tightly controlled by the state, and designed to be enjoyed by members of the Patrician elite in Venice and to be exported to the royal courts of Europe.

RELATED LITERATURE: P. Verdier, The Walters Art Gallery Catalogue of the Painted Enamels of the Renaissance, Baltimore, 1967, nos. 3-6, pp. ix-xv, 3-8; L. Syson and D. Thornton, Objects of Virtue: Art in Renaissance Italy, London, 2001, pp. 182-200

Sotheby's. Old Master Sculpture and Works of Art. 88 july 2011, London www.sothebys.com