Important polychrome painted enamel plaque with gold highlig - Lot 114

Important polychrome painted enamel plaque with gold highlights depicting the Virgin of Calvary in relief. Mary is standing, hands clasped, with a hilly landscape in the background and the city of Jerusalem animated by a group of three soldiers. Fused salmon-colored counter-glaze. Limoges, workshop of Léonard Limosin (circa 1505, 1575/1577), circa 1570 H. 38.1 cm - L. 21.5 cm (restorations executed with stippling, notably in the sky and the mantle) Provenance : - Former collection, Austria This large plate was probably part of a triptych depicting a Crucifixion. Its counterpart, of comparable dimensions, depicting Saint John with a similar background, was sold at Christie's in New York on October 12, 2023, lot 181 (fig. a). It came from the collection of Baron Édouard de Rothschild. Several works displaying the same chromaticism and similarities in the treatment of backgrounds and clouds can be used to pinpoint a period in Limosin's career: two oval plates illustrating the seasons in the Louvre (inv. MR 2548 and OA 953, figs. b and c), both dated 1572, and the pair of plates depicting Charles IX as Mars and Catherine de Médicis as Juno in the Getty Museum, dated 1573 (inv. 86.SE.536, figs. d and e). This impressive Vierge de Calvaire is therefore to be placed towards the end of Léonard Limosin's life, at a time when the great enamel painter was devoting himself to the production of enamels closely linked to the Court. Works consulted : - S. Baratte, Léonard Limosin au musée du Louvre, Paris, 1993 - S. Baratte, Les émaux peints de Limoges, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2000, p. 148 and 149. - Christie's sale 22101 New York, October 12, 2023, Rothschild Masterpieces: The Kunstkammer, lot 181.