Diana awarding a prize for hunting
Ca. 1790. Ceramic paste. Not on displayA group of Nymphs play at hunting a bird with their bows. Among them is the goddess, Diana, with a half-moon over her head. She is depicted embracing one of her hunting dogs. This work is a ceramic plaque in imitation of the British manufacturer, Wedgwood. The technique is based on using a soft slip colored with cobalt to give it blue tones, with various molded bisquit reliefs over it, finished with a brush. This was probably one of the pieces that adorned the Casita del Príncipe at El Escorial, where other pieces from the same series are still kept. These pieces had a variety of themes: flowers, mythology, putti, landscapes and ruins, always treated as decorative ornamentation in keeping with eighteenth-century tastes.
A similar version can be seen in the Medici Vase of 1783, preserved in the Louvre Museum.