Culinary Mould thumbnail 1
Culinary Mould thumbnail 2
Not currently on display at the V&A

Culinary Mould

1680-1720 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Culinary mould of pearwood, incised on both sides for stamping patterns on cakes. On one side is a man on horseback in the costume of the period, with buildings in the background; below is a seal bearing the letters 'FPS'. On the reverse, a heart-shaped panel enclosing rosettes and sprays of flowers.


Object details

Category
Object type
Materials and techniques
Incised pearwood
Brief description
figure of a horseman; German, 1680-1720, pearwood, 75/2516
Physical description
Culinary mould of pearwood, incised on both sides for stamping patterns on cakes. On one side is a man on horseback in the costume of the period, with buildings in the background; below is a seal bearing the letters 'FPS'. On the reverse, a heart-shaped panel enclosing rosettes and sprays of flowers.
Dimensions
  • Height: 32.4cm
  • Width: 22.9cm
  • Depth: 2.9cm
Marks and inscriptions
'FPS'
Object history
Purchased by the V&A in 1906.
Historical context
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.

Subjects depicted
Collection
Accession number
100-1906

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
Record URL
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