Platter with the Wedding Banquet of Psyche

ca. 1550-1575
Jean Court known as Le Maître I.C.

The mythological subject of the wedding banquet of Cupid, god of love, and Psyche, at which all the gods of the Graeco-Roman pantheon gathered, is depicted here in grisaille on a refined enamel dish. The source of inspiration is a fresco painted by Raphael in the classical style at the Villa Farnesina in Rome at the beginning of the 16th century. Extremely fragile and expensive, enamelled grisaille painting on copper, a speciality of the workshops in Limoges since the Middle Ages, was reserved for objects of great prestige.