Gruppo “Erminia” Savona, Giacomo Boselli, 1780... Lot n° 74

Porcelain biscuit. Brand: absent. Total height cm 30; height without base cm 26,5; base diameter cm 22,8. The group is composed of two separate elements: a circular plinth base with a blue background and decorated with acanthus leaves and beads in relief on which the white biscuit rests. This is formed by a clod with tufts of grasses and flowers from which rises a tree trunk next to which we find a young shepherdess, a cow and a sheep. The work depicts the Saracen princess Erminia, in the guise of a shepherdess, who engraves the name Tancredi on the trunk of a tree. The inspiration is the episode from Jerusalem Liberated, Torquato Tasso's heroic poem, which sees Erminia - secretly and unhappily in love with the Christian warrior Tancredi - hosted in a family of shepherds who live far from war in the vain hope of forgetting her unhappy love. The group was exhibited in 1939, Palazzo Reale in Genoa, at the "Mostra de l'antica maiolica ligure: dal secolo XIV al secolo XVIII", as can be seen from the paper label and published by P. Torriti, Giacomo Boselli and the Savona ceramics of his time, Genoa 1965, pp. 196-197, L; also in L.Pessa Montagni, Giacomo Boselli, culture and genius of a ceramist of the eighteenth century, Genoa 1994, p. 174, fig. 175; F.Marzinot, Ceramica e ceramisti di Liguria, Genoa 1979, p. 260, n. 298. In the last two publications the photograph has been overturned In Turin, Museo di Palazzo Reale, a group of the same model is preserved, Published in: "Ceramica e ceramisti in Ligura" edited by Federico Marzinot, Sagep editrice, pg. 260, no. 298