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Seleucus
Seleucus II was the ruler of the Seleucid empire, which emerged in the Middle East after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. This plate illustrates the sinking of Seleucus's fleet, seen at the time as divine retribution for having his stepmother and her young child put to death. As inscribed on the back of the plate, the talented painter Xanto followed an Italian translation of Justinus's History of the World, written in the second century AD. The ceramicist borrowed figures from both German and Italian sources. The fleeing Seleucus, on the left, is copied from an allegorical print of the sun by the German Master IB, while the dynamic male nudes are based on a now-lost series of erotic prints engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi and known as I Modi (The Ways). |