This plate and the one representing Jason and the giants are part of a well-known service that has been the object of much study. The plates were made for the Mesmes family: Jean-Jacques de Mesmes and his wife, Geneviève Dolu. Heraldry is integral to the decoration; the family coats of arms, which are on the back of each plate, are given as much space as the scenes on the front. Services such as the one these plates are part of were often made to celebrate a specific event in an individual’s life. We don’t know why this service was commissioned, but it has recently been suggested that Henri de Mesmes, Jacques-Jacques’s older brother, could have been involved. Henri was a great collector of books and no doubt would have owned a copy of the primary visual source for these plates: The Book of the Conquest of the Golden Fleece, by Prince Jason of Tessalie, published in Latin and French in 1563. Perhaps Henri suggested the subject for the service, a popular one at the time.
Jason Confronting the Dragon Guarding the Golden Fleece
The scenes on these dishes are taken from engravings by René Boyvin (ca. 1525–ca. 1625) after Léonard Thiry (ca. 1500–1550). The first dish shows Jason fighting the dragon, guarding the Golden Fleece, with a sword as the Argonauts watch. At the back, the arms of the Mesmes de Ravignon family impaled with the arms of the Dolu family are flanked by allegories of Air and Earth. The second dish depicts Jason confronting the Giants after sowing the teeth of Cadmus's dragon, one of the tasks he needed to complete to obtain the Golden Fleece. The coat of arms shown on the reverse belongs to the Comte d'Avaux and the Marquis de Roissi, titles acquired later by the Mesmes family. The rim of each dish is decorated with interlinked scrolls and chariots interspersed with satyrs and putti.
