Basin, silver, Italy (Genoa), 1621, mark of Giovanni Aelbosca, Belga. Lomellini coat of arms applied to centre.

Ewer, silver, Italy (Genoa), 1622, mark of Giovanni Aelbosca, Belga. Lomellini coat of arms applied to shoulder; Grimaldi arms embossed on the body.

A silver ewer and basin, the ewer cast, raised, embossed and chased, the basin embossed and chased; both decorated with scenes that show the Genoese army and navy victorious over the Venetian Republic.

Purchased with assistance from The Art Fund

The basin (marked for 1621) and ewer (marked for 1622) were made by the Flemish goldsmith Giovanni Aelbosca Belga, who is documented working in Genoa between 1617 and 1638. The pieces were originally made for a member of the Grimaldi family, tentatively identified as Onorato II of Monaco (Boggero and Simonetti: 2004, p. 117). The scenes embossed on both pieces commemorate a 1431 victory over the Venetians by Giovanni Grimaldi, a direct ancestor of Onorato, and the Grimaldi coat of arms surmounted by the imperial eagle appears on the body of the ewer. The Venetian flag with the winged lion of St Mark is visible in the sea battle on the sides of the ewer. At a slightly later date, the arms of the Lomellini family were applied to the shoulder of the ewer and centre of the basin, and the objects passed into the possession of the Lomellini family. This was probably the result of a marriage between the two families, and the new owner may have been Giacomo Lomellini di Nicolò (Boggero and Simonetti: 2004, pp. 117 and 127). The Doge's crown which surmounts the Lomellini arms was probably added after 1625, when Giacomo was elected Doge of Genoa. Nevertheless, none of the silver listed in the summary 1652 inventory of Giacomo's possessions corresponds to this ewer and basin.

Around 1807, the ewer and basin were bought in Naples by the fifth Earl of Shaftesbury. The purchase is mentioned by the poet Samuel Rodgers in a letter to the Countess of Dunmore, Lady Fincastle, dated 8th November 1807: “The Shaftesburys are making magnificent preparations. The plate Lord S. bought at Naples for £300 is the hansomest I ever saw – three vast dishes and three ewers richly sculptured like the Shield of Achilles with battles, processions &c. I saw it at Rundalls yesterday”. (Maxwell: 1898, p. 11). The other two pairs of ewers and basins mentioned by Rogers are now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Birmingham City Art Gallery. They bear the Lomellini arms, applied in the same position as on the London set, and are unmarked, though the Oxford basin is engraved with the date '1619'. Both sets are embossed with tales from Classical mythology and figures such as Neptune and Venus, and were probably commissioned to celebrate Giacomo's marriage to Barbara Spinola in around 1620 (Boggero and Simonetti: 2004, p. 117).

Shaftesbury had a square silver base added to the foot of all three ewers, and engraved the underside of the pieces with his own arms (Ashley-Cooper) impaling Webb, for Barbara, daughter and heiress of Sir John Webb, 5th Baronet and his wife, Mary, eldest daughter of Thomas Salvin and one of the co-heiresses of the Barony of de Mauley. Their marriage took place in 1786 and the pieces descended through their only daughter to the last owner, the 5th Lord de Mauley. In 1973 all three sets were sold at auction at Christie's, London.

This ewer and basin together weigh almost ten kilos and were intended for display, together with similarly grand pieces of tableware, during banquets. The arms held by one of the figures on the ewer are those of the Grimaldi family of Genoa, and the scenes of soldiers, ships and prisoners commemorate the victory of General Giovanni Grimaldi over Venetian forces in 1431. The prominent coats of arms, surmounted by a crown, applied to the shoulder of the ewer and to the centre of the basin belong not to the Grimaldi, however, but to another Genoese family, the Lomellini. It is likely that the ewer and basin were a gift from the Grimaldi family to the Lomellinis during the early seventeenth century. By adding their arms to the Grimaldi ewer and basin, the Lomellini family made the set match two similar ewers and basins they had commissioned to celebrate a marriage at a slightly earlier date. These pieces, decorated with scenes from Classical mythology, also bear the Lomellini arms and are now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and Birmingham City Art Gallery.
The ewer and basin at the V&A is significant not only as a rare survival of domestic silver made in seventeenth-century Genoa, but also because the source of some scenes embossed on the basin and ewer can be traced. Surviving sketches for now-lost frescos in the Palazzo Grimaldi by the prolific Genoese artist Lazzaro Tavarone (c. 1556 - c. 1641) correspond to elements of the narrative embossed and chased on the silver. This ewer and basin, made for Genoese patrons by the Flemish goldsmith Giovanni Aelbosca to designs sketched originally for frescos, embodies the international nature of seventeenth-century patronage and the variety of sources used by goldsmiths for their work.

M.11&A-1974