An late 19th Vienna style porcelain circular plaque enamelled with a scene after Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640) depicting 'Decius Mus Relating His Dreams'


the central canted rectangular reserve within a gilt tooled border and four D shaped floral, vase and twin bird gilt tooled border panels on a red-brown ground, the rear with underglaze blue factory mark and red painted title inscription, 50cm diameter approximately
|Decius Mus Relating His Dreamsca. 1617Oil on panel transferred to canvas (1773) in turn transferred to masonite (c. 1954-55), 80.7 x 84.5 cmSamuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C, 1957.14.2 (1394)On 9 November 1616, Rubens signed a contract with carpet weavers Jan Raes, Frans Sweers and Italian merchant Franco Cattaneo to deliver templates for tapestries to be used in a cycle regarding the life of Roman Consul Decius Mus, as described by Titus Livy in his History of Rome. Rubens finished the drafts in oil, and his most gifted pupil, Anthony van Dyck, helped him with transposing them onto a larger format. Ultimately the drafts, also known as 'carton', were laterally reversed and completed for the weavers. In the following years, numerous tapestries completed Decius Mus cycles.Five 17th-century tapestries telling the story of the Roman Consul, Decius Mus, have recently been returned to Kilkenny Castle following restoration and conservation, from the Real Fabrica de Tapices (the Royal Tapestry works) in Madrid. The tapestries had been in the ownership of the Ormonde family for almost four hundred years when the Office of Public Works purchased them in the early 1990s from the Ormonde Settled Estates. Verification of the importance of these artefacts as part of our cultural heritage has been given in the following statement by tapestry expert, Guy Delmarcel, Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at Leuven University: ' In art historical value this is an exceptional set [of tapestries] because it is unique, if one accepts my opinion that they were woven in Holland, and not in Antwerp.... So the set should be considered as a very important element of [Ireland's] cultural heritage. The weaving itself is very fine, with a large amount of silks ... and the border design is very rare too.'Designs for the Decius Mus cycle were painted in oil on large canvases around 1616 by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). The original commission was carried out for unidentified Genoese noblemen who ordered the first two sets of tapestries woven from the designs in the workshops of Jan Raes the elder. These are seen as seminal works in Rubens' oeuvre and represent his debut in tapestry design. Following in the footsteps of the great Renaissance painters, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, the figures were on a much larger, heroic scale than was usual for tapestry at that time. Raphael's series of tapestries The Acts of the Apostles, containing monumental figures provided the inspiration for several of the designs. Although it was Leonardo's fresco, The Battle of Anghiari, that provided the concept for the battle scene that features in The Death of Decius Mus. Rubens' designs for the Decius Mus cycle proved very popular and at least twenty further sets were produced by various workshops, some with gold and silver threads like the set now on display at the Palacio Real in Madrid.Six of the original seven panels in the Ormonde Decius Mus set have survived. These tapestries tell the story, adapted from Livy, of the Roman Consuls Publius Decius Mus and Titus Manlius Torquatus. In a war between Romans and the Latins, the Consuls were facing an enemy that was superior in numbers. The night before the battle both men had a dream that the winning general would have to offer up his life to achieve victory. Drawing on antique sources in his depiction of the various episodes, Rubens represents martial glory and bravery on a grand scale.The episodes depicted in the six surviving pieces from the Ormonde Collection are as follows: Decius relates his dream to his officers; Marcus Valerius consecrates Decius; Decius dismisses the Lictors; The Battle of Veseris and the Death of Decius Mus; The Funeral Obsequies of Decius Mus; Decius and Manlius go into combat against the Latins or Titus Manlius presenting the Roman Senators with plunder2 Missing from the set is the panel Decius Mus Consults the Oracle or The Interpretation of the Victim