Culinary mould, German, 1680-1720

Culinary mould, or Lebkuchen Presse, of pearwood, incised on both sides for stamping patterns on cakes. On one side is a woman in the costume of the period, seated at a spinning wheel; below, four rows of ten small discs. On the reverse are twenty-four letters of the alphabet in capitals, within a panel surmounted by a cherub; below are two hearts, each bearing half-figures of a man and a woman in costume of the period.

Culinary moulds were carved in intaglio (the design carved into the block) in various hardwoods, usually boxwood or fruitwoods, to create shapes for gingerbread, sweetmeats or the sugar sculptures that were made to decorate grand banquets or desserts from the 16th century onwards. Gingerbread moulds might be fairly simple, for pieces sold at fairs, but some of the moulds for sugar sculptures could be very complicated, and provide shapes for various parts of a decoration, that were then joined with sugar paste into three-dimensional objects (temples, beds, animals). This mould is likely to have been made for gingerbread.

105-1906