Plate Depicting the Myth of Cadmus (1526): Art, History and Details

Plate Depicting the Myth of Cadmus (1526) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Maestro Giorgio Andreoli (Italian, 1465?–1553).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Obeying the command of an oracle, Cadmus followed a cow to Boeotia, or “oxen-land.” There he slayed a dragon and buried its teeth in the ground. From the teeth grew a crop of warriors who fought each other until only the strongest five remained. Cadmus invited the victors to join him, and together they built the city of Thebes, where the mythological hero, Hercules (or Herakles) was later born.

Object facts

• Title: Plate Depicting the Myth of Cadmus
• Date: 1526
• Creator attribution: Maestro Giorgio Andreoli (Italian, 1465?–1553)
• Culture: Italy, Urbino region, Gubbio, 16th century
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: tin-glazed earthenware with gold lustre (maiolica)
• Dimensions: Diameter: 26.3 cm (10 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1950.156

A detail from the museum

This plate depicts multiple scenes from the Greek myth of Cadmus.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William M. "Three Majolica Plates by Maestro Giorgio." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 37, no. 10 (December 1950): 210-15.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.