{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O166379"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O166379/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AH2620/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AH2620/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AH2620","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017JY2860","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O166379/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O166379","accessionNumber":"8424-1863","objectType":"Plate","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"This plate, painted in brightly-coloured enamels towards the end of the sixteenth century, would have been made to be one of a set. Each plate was decorated with a separate scene. Together they illustrated episodes from the story of Joseph as told in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. The enamelling workshop, which often signed its products 'I.C.' for 'Jean Court', was fairly faithful to the prints it used as design sources. This scene of Joseph accusing his brothers of spying follows a woodcut by Bernard Salomon from a book called 'Quadrins Historiques de la Bible' first published in 1553. As the book was reprinted several times in subsequent years, the date the enamelled plate was made cannot be precisely established on the grounds of its source design alone. The decorative style and use of translucent enamels over foils suggest a date of 1575-1600 is most likely.\n\r\nThis plate was bought from the Soulages Collection, formed in the 1830s and 1840s by Toulouse lawyer, Jules Soulages, a Toulouse lawyer. It was a Collection rich in Renaissance artworks, mainly Italian but including twenty-four Limoges enamels. The Soulages Collection was exhibited in 1856 at Marlborough House, London, and the following year at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition before being purchased by the South Kensington Museum (now V&amp;A) between 1859 and 1865. ","physicalDescription":"Enamelled plate with shallow well painted in colours on a dark ground with an episode from the Biblical account of Joseph as told in the Book of Genesis, chapter 42. The scene shown relates specifically to verse 24. Joseph's brothers come to Egypt to buy grain in a time of famine. They do not recognise their long-lost brother whom they had sold into slavery years earlier. Joseph, now the most powerful official in the land, accuses his brothers of being spies. He binds and imprisons one brother, Simeon, insisting the others, having returned to Canaan with grain, bring their youngest brother Benjamin with them back to Egypt. \n\nThe scene derives from a woodcut by Bernard Salomon printed in Claude Paradin's 'Quadrins Historiques de la Bible' first published in Lyons by Jean de Tournes in 1553. The action takes place before a backdrop of classical buildings. While most of Joseph's brothers are ushered away to the right of the scene, an officer forces Simeon to his knees before Joseph who turns away to hide his emotions. The well of the plate is edged with gilded ornament of reverse S-scrolls while the border is decorated with grotesques (including faces swathed in headdresses, faces with abnormally large ears, and armless demi-figures with serpentine tails) and two-handled vases. The rim is painted white. The back of the plate is decorated with a border of gilded leaves, a shallower band of gilded interlaced foliate decoration and in the centre, grisaille strapwork with red pomegranates and grapes between which grotesque faces coloured in flesh pink hold swags of drapery with their mouths. Features such as the faces in headdresses and the formal interlaced gilded decoration derive from 'Moresque' ornament for goldsmiths' work such as that designed by Peter Flötner in Nuremberg and Bathazar van den Bos in Antwerp.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"de Court, Jean","id":"A18331"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":"or workshop"}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"copper","id":"AAT11020"}],"techniques":[{"text":"enamelled","id":"x30139"},{"text":"gilded","id":"AAT53789"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Copper, painted in coloured enamels and gilded and with coloured translucent enamels over foils.","categories":[{"text":"Enamels","id":"THES48876"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"CER","id":"THES48594"},"images":["2006AH2620","2017JY2860"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"009","id":"THES399697"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Plate","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Limoges","id":"x32604"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1575 - 1600","earliest":"1570-01-01","latest":"1600-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[{"object":{"text":"8425-1863","id":"O166376"},"association":"Object"},{"object":{"text":"C.2445-1910","id":"O276612"},"association":"Object"},{"object":{"text":"C.488-1921","id":"O276610"},"association":"Object"}],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"2.7","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Diameter","value":"20","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":"Measured"}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"'G. XLII', in gold","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Top front of plate, in sky area. Reference to Genesis 42."}],"objectHistory":"Bought for £24 from the Soulages Collection. The plate was one of twenty-four Limoges enamels from the spectacular collection of mainly Italian Renaissance works of art formed during the 1830s and 1840s by Jules Soulages, a Toulouse lawyer. After exhibition first at Marlborough House, London, in 1856 and then at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857, the Soulages Collection was purchased in several tranches by the South Kensington Museum (now V&amp;A) between 1859 and 1865. The plate was later displayed again at the Special Loan Exhibition of Enamels on Metal, held in the Museum in 1874.\n\nThe identity of the master enameller variously signing his work 'Jean Court', 'Jean de Court', 'Jean Court dit Vigier', or by the initials 'I.C.', 'IDC' and 'ICDV' has caused confusion for many years. Some hold him to be one and the same man while archival sources indicate that there may have been two or even three separate enamellers working in Limoges with variations of this name during the second half of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Whether they all collaborated in one single workshop founded by Jean Court dit Vigier is unclear. This enameller, active ca. 1555-85, carried out technically proficient work which was aesthetically precise and attractive and included polychrome portrait masterpieces for the court in Paris. The name Vigier indicates that he was a magistrate representing the viscount of Limousin in Limoges. He has been equated with the artist who became court painter to Charles IX, the painter to Charles Bourbon, Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon in 1553 and to the widowed Mary, Queen of Scots, 1562-67. The poet Jacques Blanchon praised this painter in an ode of 1583. While at court in Paris, other work could have been produced by his workshop such as the body of accomplished grisaille work in a highly decorative Mannerist style. His workshop could also have been continued after his death. Polychrome plates usually signed 'I.C.' such as those from the Joseph series are thought to have been produced towards the end of the sixteenth century on stylistic grounds. ","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Plate, painted in enamels on copper and gilded with a scene from the Biblical story of Joseph, Jean de Court or workshop, Limoges, France, ca. 1575-1600.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"J. C. Robinson, Catalogue of the Soulages Collection, 1856"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Catalogue of the art treasures of the United Kingdom collected at Manchester in 1857, London, Bradbury and Evans, (1857)"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Catalogue of the Special Loan Exhibition of Enamels on Metal held at the South Kensington Museum in 1874, London: Chiswick Press, 1875"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Sophie Baratte, Les Emaux peints de Limoges, Paris, Musee du Louvre, 2000"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Suzanne Higgott, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Glass and Limoges Painted Enamels, 2011"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Clare Vincent, Painted Enamels, in 'The Robert Lehman Collection: XV Decorative Arts', The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2012"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Maryvonne Beyssi-Cassan, Le métier d’émailleur à Limoges, XVIe-XVIIe siècle, Limoges, 2006 \r\n"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Neumann, Nicolas eds.<u> Lyon Renaissance: Arts et Humanisme</u>. Somogy éditions d’art: Paris, 2015. ISBN 9782757209912."}],"production":"Salomon's print series telling the story of Joseph lent itself well to translating into decoration for individual enamelled plates. These plates could then be sold as a set, most likely of twelve. At least sixteen possible scenes were used implying that each set would include the standard key episodes but that there was some latitude in making up the remainder of the set from a choice of supplementary scenes. No complete set is known to be extant but there are examples of Joseph plates from the Jean de Court workshop in many public collections such as the Waddesdon Bequest at the British Museum; the Wallace Collection; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the Louvre Museum, Paris; The Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig; the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; the St. Louis Art Museum; and a grisaille version in the Taft Museum, Cincinnati. The Salomon woodcuts also inspired Joseph scenes used on other object types such as enamelled caskets.","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"Joseph accuses his brothers of being spies and imprisons Simeon.","contentPlaces":[{"text":"Egypt","id":"x29512"}],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[{"text":"Joseph","id":"N616"},{"text":"Simeon","id":"AUTH335370"}],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["8424-1863"],"accessionNumberNum":"8424","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1863,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2016JE5692"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-05-09","recordCreationDate":"2008-08-28","availableToBook":true}}