Plaque

The enamelled tondo on plate with the profile of a woman with the face turned right is set in a square wooden frame. An inscription is visible around the head: ‘DIVO FAUSTINA’. The preserved inscription allows us to assume that it is a portrait of Annia Galeria Faustina, called Faustina the Elder, living between 98 and 141 A.D., the wife of Emperor Antonius Pius (86–161). Her images appeared on Roman denariuses coined after 141. The empress’s image can be associated with the unusual popularity of works with a similar form inspired by The Twelve Caesars – a set of biographies by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (ca. 69–130). The lives of the twelve caesars described by Suetonius became a suitable decorative motif presented in many different forms (medallions, plaques, plates, busts, full-body images). Cycles of the twelve apostles, scenes from Christ’s life and his suffering, parables, allegories of months, as well as portrait cycles ordered as galleries of ancestors were hugely popular, too. They satisfied the need to obtain fashionable decorative sets that were used, despite the small size of such objects, as elements encrusting larger decorative shapes – cabinets, cupboards or even interior wood panels.

Léonard Limosin, to whom this plaque is attributed, became a royal enameller in the court of Francis II (1559–1560) and Charles IX (1570–1574) in 1535. Portraits of the royal family and representatives of the court are considered to be his best works.

The plaque 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. It is described in the catalogue of this exhibition under item 793.

Joanna Paprocka-Gajek