A N N U A L R E P O R T - The Ashmolean Museum

Acquisitions, Gifts and Loans / 43
Lustreware dish with the arms of Spannocchi
Spanish, Valencia region, probably Manises, c.1480–1500. Tin-glazed earthenware,
diam. 48.0 cm. Purchased with the aid of the National Art Collections Fund and
private donors.
The dish, with a central boss to support a ewer, has applied relief ornament
of crosses, wings, and radiating panels, and is decorated in brilliant metallic
lustre with an interlocking pattern of miniature leaf motifs; on the reverse are
fern-scrolls in lustre.
The arms on the boss, coloured in imitation of the enamelled box on a
precious metal dish, are Piccolomini impaling Spannocchi, as used by the
Spannocchi family of Siena after Ambrogio Spannocchi served as Treasurer to
Pius II Piccolomini (Pope 1458–1464). Services made for Sienese families
are rarer than those made for Florentines; the Spannocchi set, of which three
other pieces are known, is the most
substantial. The wings and
crosses recall the emblems of
the Valencian saint,
Vincent Ferrer
(1350–1419).