These cookies are absolutely essential for our website to function properly.
We use Google Analytics to measure how you use the website so we can improve it based on user needs.
These cookies may be set by third party websites and do things like measure how you view YouTube videos.
Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales
Dish, maiolica, standing on a tapering footring, with curved sides to the well and a flared rim; painted in the well with a boar hunting scene, on the rim with two symmetrical series of grotteschi, at the top an impresa of burning asbestos above the motto ARDET AETERNUM, at the bottom the figure of Fortuna in a cartouche, on the reverse three pairs of concentric yellow lines.
This dish commemorates the marriage of Alfonso II d'Este (1533-1597), fifth and last Duke of Ferrara, to Margherita Gonzaga (1564-1618) in 1579. To mark the event Alfonso ordered one of the most spectacular maiolica dinner services ever made. Like this dish, each piece bears his impresa of burning asbestos - a symbol of undying love - and the Latin motto ARDET AETERNUM (‘it burns for ever’).
Collections Online is updated regularly, but please confirm that an object remains on display before making a special visit.
