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Ewer
unknown - Enlarge image
Ewer
- Place of origin:
Venice, Italy (made)
- Date:
16th century (made)
- Artist/Maker:
unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Enbossed copper with a silvered surface
- Museum number:
4892-1858
- Gallery location:
In store
This copper ewer was probably a purely decorative object. During the period 1500-1600 in Italy ewers changed from utilitarian objects for carrying and pouring water into pure showpieces.
Ornamental artists designed richly decorated examples, like this one, in the Mannerist style that emerged in Northern Italy in the 1520s. Typically such ewers had the ovate body, trumpet foot, narrow neck and curving handle placed high on the body you can see on this example.
Itinerant goldsmiths and engraved pattern sheets helped to spread this style of ewer to most of those European countries where there was a flourishing goldsmithing tradition.
