Copper-gilt incense boat, spoon and plaque in Central Italian style, 1400-1450.

Copper gilt, the incense container in the form of a boat, on a foot composed as a sexfoil superimposed on a six-pointed star. The lower part of the boat is fluted to suggest planking. The hinged lid is engraved on either side with foliage and an ogeed quatrefoil, within which is a three-quarter length figure. On one side, this represents a bishop saint with a crozier and book. On the other, it shows St Catherine crowned with wheel, martyr's palm and book. The handles at each end are formed as dragons.

Nothing is known of the early history of this piece.

The separate plaque is an unusual feature. It was attached over the image of the bishop saint, apparently by four patches of tin or lead solder. The plaque also represents a bishop saint, who must be Saint Augustine, since he wears the costume of an Augustinian Hermit, with its characteristic belt. It seems most likely that the bishop represented on the incense boat is also intended to be Saint Augustine. The plaque is of roughly contemporary date with the incense boat, and has been especially made to fit engraved pattern on its lid.

What seems to have happened is the following: the incense boat was made for a group of Augustinian Hermits, who asked that the lid contain representations of Saints Augustine and Catherine of Alexandria. After having received the incense boat, they decided that the image of Saint Augustine was unsatisfactory. The making of a replacement image, which depicts the saint more recognisably, and in a manner more relevant to the Augustinian Hermits, seems to have been a quicker and easier solution than removing the lid and re-making it.

Incense boats were used to store incense prior to its being put into a censer for burning. Their boat-like shape was traditional. The most common subject for the lid of an incense boat in Italy was the Annunciation - the representation of two saints, as here, is much more unusual.

Although clearly Central Italian in style, this piece is rather different from other surviving examples. The main examples in the known corpus have been usefully discussed by Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye, in her catalogue of the medieval metalwork in the Musee de Cluny. The Paris museum in particular possesses a mid-15th century incense boat, probably Sienese (museum number Cl.11157). Like most of the other surviving Central Italian incense boats, the lid represents the Annunciation. Taburet-Delahaye notes that the fluting on the lower part of the Paris boat, suggesting wooden panelling, cannot be parallelled in the other pieces she discusses. She was apparently not aware that it can be parallelled very closely in the V&A's incense boat. Nevertheless, the comparison does not stretch as far as the style of the engraved decoration, which on the Parisian example is more purely that of the mid fifteenth century renaissance. The engraving on the V&A's incense boat is in a rather less elegant and controlled late gothic idiom. Donal Cooper has plausibly suggested that the style is that of the Marche.

Incense boats were used to store incense prior to its being put into a censer for burning. Their boat-like shape was traditional. The most common subject for the lid of an incense boat in Italy was the Annunciation - the representation of two saints, as here, is much more unusual. The separate plaque is a remarkable feature. It was attached over the image of the bishop saint, apparently by four patches of tin or lead solder. The plaque is of roughly contemporary date with the incense boat, and has been especially made to fit the engraved pattern on its lid.

What seems to have happened is that the incense boat was made for a group of Augustinian Hermits. After having received the incense boat, they decided that the image of Saint Augustine was unsatisfactory. The replacement image depicts the saint more recognisably: he wears the habit of an Augustinian Hermit, with its characteristic belt.

606 to B-1902