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Childbirth tray (desco da parto); obverse: Diana and Actaeon, reverse: Justice
Artwork Viewer
The Tuscan tradition of commissioning a desco da parto, or birth tray, to commemorate a new baby began around the fourteenth century. One side of this tray portrays two stories about Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting and nature. The upper scene depicts a tale from Ovid's Metamorphoses where Diana transforms the hunter Actaeon into a stag. The lower scene comes from the story of Diana's hunt by the contemporary Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio, in which the animals hunted by young women are transformed into the men they will marry. The reverse shows the personification of Justice, flanked by coats of arms that most likely represent the maternal and paternal lines of the newborn's family (the one at left belonged to the prominent Florentine Salviati family).
- Attributed to
- Lorenzo di Niccolò
- Title
- Childbirth tray (desco da parto); obverse: Diana and Actaeon, reverse: Justice
- Date
- ca. 1380-1400
- Place of Creation
- Firenze
- Object Type
- Painting
- Medium
- Tempera and gold leaf on wood panel
- Dimensions
- 25 1/8 x 25 3/8 x 1 3/4 in. (63.8 x 64.5 x 4.4 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of the Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Foundation
- Accession Number
- 78.78
