Please complete the form to email this item.

Salt

Salt

  • Place of origin:

    Memmingen (made)

  • Date:

    ca. 1575 (made)

  • Artist/Maker:

    Unknown

  • Materials and Techniques:

    Silver-gilt, engraved

  • Museum number:

    240-1874

  • Gallery location:

    Silver, room 69, case 15

  • Order this image

Small triangular salt cellars mounted on three feet were common pieces of tableware in affluent homes in late 16th-century Germany. The cities of southern Germany dominated the goldsmiths’ craft there from the 15th to the early 19th centuries. Engraved designs for silver flowed off their printing presses into workshops across Europe. Their goldsmiths and merchants travelled widely, the former sometimes settling in cities that promised new sources of patronage, the latter selling silver goods as far north as the Baltic Sea and as far east as Russia.

Physical description

Triangular, with hemispherical bowl. The visible parts all gilt, the top half decorated with scrolls and foliage, supported on 3 mask feet. Engraved lozenge decoration around rim.

Place of Origin

Memmingen

Date

ca. 1575 (made)

Artist/maker

Unknown

Materials and Techniques

Silver-gilt, engraved

Marks and inscriptions

"Underside of bowl:
town mark, a shield, divided in two, the left hand side containing half an eagle, the right hand side a cross, for Memmingen
engraved arms (a merchant's mark?) of rearing horse in an escutcheon, with a horizontal line across the middle, unidentified
maker's mark IN, with a 6 pointed star above, unidentified (Rosenberg 3397)"

Dimensions

Height: 2.50 cm
Length: 9.20 cm

Object history note

Purchase - J Webb Collection

Attribution Note

Memmingen, Bavaria. Maker unidentified.

Categories

Metalwork; Tableware & cutlery

Collection code

MET

Order this image
Qr_O91620
Ajax-loader