The Vyvyan Salt
- Object:
- Place of origin:
- Date:
- Artist/Maker:
- Materials and Techniques:
Silver gilt, with painted and gilded glass (verre églomisé)
- Credit Line:
Acquired with the assistance of the Goldsmiths' Company, The Art Fund and Edmund A. Phillips
- Museum number:
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 57a, case 13
- Download image
Object Type
This 'salt' is a large, ceremonial object which would have been placed in front of the head of the household or the guest of honour as a container for salt during a meal. Salts were among the most important pieces of metalwork in a Tudor or Stuart household. They could be made in a variety of styles and sizes and use different materials such as gems, pearls, enamels or crystal and can be used to show wealth and status.
The glass panels are made of verre eglomisé which is a process in which the image is painted on the reverse of the glass and backed with silver or gold foil to make it reflective.
Subjects Depicted
The panels are painted with images from emblem books such as Geoffrey Whitney's A Choice of Emblemes (1586) and Paradin's Devises héroïques. Emblem books were very popular in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. They combine pictures and text to present a striking message or moral admonition. The designs shown on this salt include a fruiting vine around a tree, a snake in a strawberry plant and red roses with bees and spiders. Each picture was symbolic: for example, the image of the snake and the strawberry plant warned against flattery and sugared words.
The glass panels are also decorated with portrait heads of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Ninus and Cyrus. A figure of Justice acts as the finial.
People
This salt has been passed down through the Vyvyan family of Trelowarren House, Cornwall since the early 17th century.
Physical description
The latin inscriptions are short moral phrases
[cover (closure)] A square salt on 4 feet, the two-part canopied cover supported on four scrolls and rising to a figure finial.
The feet are cast and chased couchant lions, each straddling an octagonal rod soldered to a rectangular plate with chamfered edges. The base is embossed and chased above an x-punched strip with variant lion masks in burnished cartouches between fruit clusters on a matted ground. At the corners 3/4 columns made up of 3 shaped sections are pegged through the base plate and soldered at the top. Attached to each are vertical strips which hold in place rectangular glass panels. The panels are painted on the reverse with devices or emblems and mottoes within guilloche borders: 'PRUDENTE VINO ABSTINENT' a fruiting vine entwined around a tree; 'AVARITIAE STIPENDIUM' Tantalus in the sea gazing at a tree of golden apples (panel cracked); 'LATET ANGUIS IN HERBA' a snake in a strawberry plant with butterflies and a snail (panel cracked); and 'VITAE A(UT MORTI)' red roses with bees and a spider (a third of this panel is missing). Above the panels is a convex stage embossed and chased as on the foot with fruit replacing the lion masks, and an x-punched strip. The upper face of the horizontal rim is die-struck as on the foot; a plain inner strip supports the cover. The vertical wall of the salt-well is crudely engraved with linked circles and the four corner arcs are crudely engraved with pairs of leaf sprays. The lower part of the cover rises to an angled strip struck with pairs of formalized blooms.
At each corner cast scrolls with applied serpent heads above four-petal rosettes are soldered inside a plain 4-square frame of white silver. The upper part of the cover rises from 4 vertical strips, crudely engraved with joined circles. Each corner is broken off, indicating that the scrolls originally met the cover frame at this point. The die-struck outer rim is soldered to a square plate engraved in each corner with a draped vase containing pairs of flowering branches. The cover is embossed and chased with fruit between 4 burnished circular panels, each enclosing a glass disc within a rubbed-over mount. The 4 discs are painted on the reverse with portrait heads, lettered in gilt 'CYRUS MAIOR', 'NINUS', 'ALEXANDAR G.', C. IVLIUS CAESAR'. Crowning the hemisphere is a vertical x-punched ring supporting a spool lightly engraved with 3 stylized flowers. To this are soldered 3 s-shaped scrolls, supporting a slightly domed and engraved button with an x-punched ring and burron. On this stands the cast and chased figure of Justice.
Place of Origin
London, England (made)
Date
1592-1593 (hallmarked)
Artist/maker
unknown (production)
Materials and Techniques
Silver gilt, with painted and gilded glass (verre églomisé)
Marks and inscriptions
[cover (closure)] WH over a flower in a plain shield
[cover (closure)] Leopard's head crowned mark for London
[cover (closure)] Lion passant Sterling standard
[cover (closure)] 'P' date letter
[cover (closure)] 'PRUDENTE VINO ABSTINENT'
[cover (closure)] 'AVARITIAE STIPENDIUM'
[cover (closure)] 'LATET ANGUIS IN HERBA' The snake lies in the grass
[cover (closure)] 'VITAE A(UT MORTI)'
[cover (closure)] 'CYRUS MAIOR'
[cover (closure)] 'NINUS'
[cover (closure)] 'ALEXANDAR G.'
[cover (closure)] 'C. IULIUS CAES.'
Dimensions
Height: 40.4 cm, Width: 16 cm foot, Depth: 16.5 cm foot
[cover (closure)] Height: 23.0 cm, Weight: 1784 g
[Standing salt (Vyvyan salt)] Height: 19.7 cm
Object history note
Made in London by an unknown goldsmith; with the mark of WH over a flower in a plain shield
Historical significance: The goldsmith's mark is found on a pair of flagons (1592) belonging to Rendcombe Church, Gloucestershire. This extraordinary salt combines certain well-established elements of Elizabethan design, such as the cast animal feet, the canopy and the architectural conception, with an unusually careful execution (for English silver). In addition the inclusion of verre eglomisé panels painted with themes from emblem books (G. Whitney Emblems (1586) and Paradin Devises heroiques) further distinguishes the salt as exceptional in surviving English silver, although emblems are found on Sheldon tapestries and in wall paintings, and the Nine Worthies (whose members varied) had been part of English popular art since the mid-fifteenth century, when they occur in a civic pageant at York.
A great salt 'with pictures' at Hardwick in 1601 may have been comparable, but other references to verre eglomisé in English silver are few, although painted glass occurs in several entries in the 1574 royal inventory. Some of these royal pieces were contemporary or near-contemporary acquisitions; others had been in the Jewel House since the time of Henry VIII. This is, however, a decorative technique far more characteristic of Swiss or German goldsmiths' work. (P. Glanville, Silver in Tudor and Early Stuart England, No. 91.)
Descriptive line
Tudor silver-gilt salt and cover, English 16th century
Labels and date
British Galleries:
Salt was a luxury commodity. It was presented at table in a precious container called simply a 'salt'. Highly ornate silver or silver-gilt salts were considered prestigious gifts by Elizabeth I's courtiers. This large-scale salt follows the shape of a contemporary clock. The painted glass panels are decorated with emblems copied from contemporary books. [27/03/2003]
London; hallmark 1592-3, silver-gilt and verre eglomisé. Maker's mark WH with a flower. The glass panels are adapted from Geoffrey Whitney, A Choice of Emblemes (1586); the glass medallions on the cover depict heroes of antiquity and the finial is a figure of Justice. The form of this salt resembles that of a contemporary clock, the dome-shaped cover echoing the bell on which the hours were struck: such conceits went out of fashion after about 1680.
British Galleries: Gallery 52
Materials
Glass; Sterling silver
Techniques
Gilding; Verre églomisé
Subjects depicted
Alexander the Great; Caesar, Gaius Julius; , Cyrus (the Great); Ninus; Tantalus
Categories
Metalwork; Eating; Food vessels & Tableware
Collection code
MET
