After the first panels inlaid with geometric motifs, naturalistic subjects appeared in the workshop as early as the end of the sixteenth century.
Among the first objects produced with these naturalistic subjects, there are these two big panels. They provide a very elegant version of the flower pot theme, one of the most long-lasting and successful subjects of the Florentine mosaic.
The two panels, made with touchstone background, match non-precious materials such as grey “bardiglio” (used for the base of the vase) and more precious stones such as agates and flowered jaspers (used for the flowers) or the oriental chalcedony used for the central lily. This last stone, luminous and translucent, lets a colored metal sheet lain under the surface shine through.
Only these two panels survived from a series of twelve, alternating two subjects: the flower pot and an orange tree. They were supposed to be the ornamental paneling of a small oratory of the Medici villa at Poggio Imperiale.
