Circular bowl, silver, parcel-gilt, set with a central medallion of translucent yellow, blue and green enamel showing a griffin.

Circular bowl, silver, parcel-gilt, set with a central medallion of translucent yellow, blue and green enamel showing a griffin. The embossed and chased decoration (hammered into relief) consists of stylised vine and oak leaves on matted grounds and a six-pointed star framing the well of the bowl.

The bowl forms part of the so-called 'Rouen Treasure' hoard, said to have been found in an iron box when pulling down a house in Rouen in 1864. Three further bowls (107, 108 and 109-1865), four silver spoons (110 to 113-1865) and a gold écu of Philip VI of Valois (ruled 1328-50) from this hoard are also in the V&A. In 1961 Charles Oman suggested that they originally belonged to a larger hoard of silver, whose origin is unknown but was possibly near Gaillon in Normandy. This hoard also included pieces now found in the Musée de Cluny (traditionally thought to have been excavated in 1851 at the Château of Gaillon, once the country palace of the archbishops of Rouen), in the Basilewsky Collection now in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg and in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Historical significance: This bowl bears the earliest known hallmark for Montpellier. French domestic silver of this period is extremely rare.

This bowl was probably designed as a drinking vessel for wine for an affluent French household (called a hanap in contemporary French inventories, which also indicate they were often made in sets). The 1379-80 inventory of Charles V of France's household goods describes gilt or parcel-gilt hapans d'argent (silver hanaps) decorated with enamelled prints and rich ornament hammered into relief. A similar-shaped bowl can be seen in use as a drinking vessel on folio 55 of the illuminated manuscript Oeuvres de Guillaume de Machaut, Paris, about 1350 from the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris [Fr.1586], illustrated in eds. Pierre Ennès, Gérard Mabille and Philippe Thiébaut, Histoire de la Table (Paris, Flammarion, 1994), p. 42.

Medieval diners drank wine from shallow bowls like this, and from cups and beakers in a variety of styles. This bowl was probably intended for drinking, although it is possibly too shallow, and may have been used as a dish for sweetmeats. The bowl forms part of the so-called 'Rouen Treasure' hoard, said to have been found in an iron box when pulling down a house in Rouen in 1864. Three further bowls, four silver spoons and a gold écu of Philip VI of Valois (ruled 1328-50) from this hoard are also in the V&A, other bowls from the hoard are in the Louvre, Paris and the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.Many of the pieces are punched with early French hallmarks, indicating the purity of the silver.

106-1865