Rare plaques discovered in hallway sell for £100k

Two rare plaques have been sold for £100,000 at auction in a "once-in-a-generation" moment in art history.

For years, a family in a small Shaftesbury home had enjoyed glancing up at the two pieces of art in their hallway - which depicted a scene of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire.

It was only when they emailed a picture to Wiltshire-based auctioneers Woolley and Wallis that they realised the plaques had been created by famed Renaissance artist Francesco Xanto Avelli who lived between 1487 and 1542.

John Axford, chairman of Woolley and Wallis, said: "The rediscovery of these two Xanto plaques is the sort of event that happens perhaps once in a generation."

The auction, which took place on 22 October, marked the first time since 1884 that the 16th-century plaques, which are both signed by the artist, have been brought to market.

A UK-based buyer bought the plaques for a combined total of just over £100,000 including fees.

Axford added: "Hidden from public view for more than 140 years, they [the plaques] represent a thrilling survival from one of the most celebrated groups of Renaissance maiolica ever created.

"Their impeccable provenance, tracing back to Sir Andrew Fountaine's legendary collection and carrying a fascinating connection to the Medici court in Florence, only adds to their significance."

The two plaques form part of a series of around 39 maiolica plaques painted in 1536 by Xanto, who was born in Rovigo, in the Veneto region of Italy.

Elsewhere, two plaques from the painter's Life of Persian King Cyrus are held in the Louvre collection in Paris.

The two plaques arrived in England with Sir Andrew Fountaine of Narford Hall in Norfolk.

It is thought they were purchased when he went on The Grand Tour - a long-distance trip through Europe once undertaken by wealthy, upper-class young men - around 1714.

The plaques remained in the Fountaine collection for generations until the family decided to dispose of them in an auction in 1884.

The plaques were bought by General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers of Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.

They passed down through the Pitt Rivers family, by descent, to the present owners in the West Country.

Jeremy Lamond, head of valuations at Woolley and Wallis, said: "We are delighted to have discovered the plaques through a routine valuation enquiry, which proved to have been undiscovered for over 140 years."

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