The burner comes apart in three sections. Round bowl embossed with scrollwork and having two handles attached to grotesque masks; four cast lion feet. Round the top of the bowl is an openwork gallery into which fits a domed cover embossed with acanthus leaves and with winged terminal figures: four vine-scroll handles. Ownership inscription around the aperture in the top of the cover. Into the aperture fits a figure of a bearded classical warrior holding a spear and a shield engraved with the arms of the Sardinian branch of the Cao family, surmounted by a helmet.

Acquired with the aid of the Hildburgh Fund

The piece was acquired under the Hildburgh Bequest and purchased from Miss Charlotte R. Webster. Nothing is known of its recent history, save that it was stated by the vendor to have come from an important collection in the United States.
The inscription round the top of the cover refers to Gerolamo Cao, son of Don Pietro Cao and Donna Giovanna Giordano. He was born at Cagliari (Sardinia) at the end of the sixteenth century. He was educated at Rome, where he entered into holy orders. Returning to Cagliari he was appointed profesor of law at the university and canon of the cathedral. He wrote works on Sardinian history including a continuation in Italian covering the years 1557-1640 of the De rebus sardis of Faro. These were never published and are perhaps lost. (See Oman, Golden Age of Hispanic Silver, cat. no. 161, p.53.

Since the shield on the cover is surmounted by a helmet it is likely that the piece came into the possession of Don Francesco Cao, to whom the arms were granted on 3rd and 6th October, 1646. Though the original owner is not known to have visited Spain, it must be remembered that Sardinia was at this period a Spanish dominion and that it would have been very easy for a piece made in Spain to have reached that island.

Weighing almost six kilos, and with a height of over half a metre, this example is strikingly large compared to the size and weight of other burners listed in inventories and it probably combined the function of perfume burner with that of a brazier (heater). A late-seventeenth-century still life painting by Madeleine de Boulogne (d.1710) shows a silver perfume burner of similar form and size amongst pieces of parade armour (Christie's, King Street, London, 6 July 2007, Old Master and British Pictures, lot 177).

Sweetly-perfumed air was pleasant; it was also thought to create a healthy environment (for scent, health and the interior, see Davies and Kennedy (2009), pp.232-234; Ajmar-Wollheim and Dennis (2006), pp.309-10; Wheeler (2009), no. 42). Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century accounts of grand dinners held on church or state business sometimes refer to the role of perfumed air in making proceedings more luxurious. In his treatise on cooking, Bartolommeo Scappi (1570, fol. 153r) advised the host's servants to place pots of sweetly-scented flowers on the table. A contemporary account of the festivities at Valladolid in June 1605 following the birth of Philip IV of Spain describes the setting for a banquet hosted by the Constable of Castile, Juan Fernández de Velasco for Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham and Admiral of England. The preparations included a series of rooms decorated with valuable and elaborate displays of plate; all the rooms 'had many perfect perfumes and scents' ('Todas las dichas piezas estaban con muchos perfumes y olores muy perfetos' (Relación de lo sucedido, p.135). Sweet scents were not only required for occasions of grand dining. A small silver burner weighing around a kilo is recorded in the inventory of the Duchess of Lerma, Doña Catalina de La Cerda (died 1603); see Madrid: Archivo de Protocolos, sig.8748, fol. 40v; this reference kindly provided by Javier Alonso Benito, Independent Scholar based in Madrid). This may have been used to perfume a bedroom or study. Luis Lobera de Avila, physician to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, advised that the air in sleeping quarters be filled with incense to create an atmosphere of 'many good smells' (cited in Davis and Kennedy (2009), p.234). For the types of aromatics that sixteenth and seventeenth-century writers prescribed as suitable for burning, see Castle (2000), pp.12-18. The size of this example suggests it is a type described in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish inventories as a 'brasero pebetero', which combined the function of a perfume burner with that of a brazier (heater) as well. The piece as it survives today can be dismantled into three separate parts. No internal structure, which may have separated the the burning of aromatics from the burning of charcoal, and protected the silver from heat, survives.

This is a strikingly large example of a perfume burner. A crudely-engraved inscription round the upper part records that it belonged to a Sardinian professor of law and canon of Caligari Cathedral, Gerolamo Cao. A silver statuette of a soldier on the top holds a shield with the Cao family arms. Perfume burners were used to distribute a pleasant scent, at a time when a sweet-smelling environment was considered not just agreeable but also essential for good health. Juniper, turpentine, frankincense and bay leaves may have burned within it to produce a pleasant and salubrious smell.

M.21-1966