Plate

One of the six small oval plates, decorated with enamel en grisaille in brown tones, with white accents. White meandering lines near the collar edges, changing into cartouches
filled with inscriptions referring to individual scenes on the vertical axis, are a common motif for the set. Between them, there is a floral vine. On the reverse side, there is a bust in profile, facing left (on one plate) or right (on the other plate). The vessels are put together into pairs according to the relationship resulting from a love story described in Metamorphoses by Ovid.

The decoration of the vessel mirror is formed by the scene of establishing a covenant by shaking right hands (symbol of the Covenant) between two figures in Roman armours (Mars and Bellona or Minerva). Tents are visible behind figures in the deep on the left. In the background, there is a landscape with hills. There is an inscription in the cartouche: CONCORDE. On the reverse side, there is the bust of the goddess Venus, in profile facing right, and an inscription: VENVS. 
Venus is the Roman goddess of love and fertility and the guardian of sailors. Her attributes were a mirror and a headband; it was shown with a myrtle, a rose and an apple, surrounded by a hare, a swan and a pigeon. Like other scenes from this set, it was made presumably according to a drawing placed in French editions of Andrea Alciato Emblematum liber, a work by Andrea Alciato, prepared by Guillaume Roville from Lyon (1548), where the image is additionally accompanied by an inscription. The wood engravings were probably created by Pierre Vase (Eskrich). The small plate forms a pair with a vessel decorated on the reverse side with a representation of Mars in profile facing left (Wil.214).

The plate was shown to the Warsaw audience during An Exhibition of Antique and Art Objects in the palace of Count August Potocki and his wife at Krakowskie Przedmieście 32 (today the Museum of the University of Warsaw) in 1856. They are described in the catalogue of this exhibition under item 791/1.

Joanna Paprocka-Gajek