Measuring 16½in (42cm), it came to the January 19 auction in London from a European source and sold to the British trade at £210,000 (estimate £30,000-40,000).
The scene to the shallow, footed dish is The Rape of Hippodamia after a print by Enea Vico (1523-67) and depicts Theseus rising from the banqueting table to draw his sword against the Lapith centaurs who abduct Hippodamia.
A large drapery hung from the branches behind them bears the arms of the Vitelli family, papal vicars in Città di Castello.
Painter of the Apollo Basin
This dish represents a new addition to the canon of a skilled decorator identified in 2002 by scholar John Mallet as the Painter of the Apollo Basin - after a piece dated 1532 in the Pesaro Museum. To the reverse of this recent discovery is a blue cartouche painted in yellow with the indistinct date 1[5]33 and a script capital B that may lead to further research.
Its main condition issue was the large section, from two o'clock to five o'clock, that had been broken and restuck.
Other works attributed by Mallet to this painter, who seems likely to have worked mainly in Urbino, include a charger by the artist painted with the birth of John the Baptist, sold at Christie's in July 2012 for a premium-inclusive £457,250.
