Silver gilt; Netherlands (Utrecht), Ernst Jansz. van Vianen. Utrecht mark for 1602.

Tazza (shallow bowl on a central foot) of gilded silver, the bowl embossed and chased with the reclining figure of the dying Meleager, supported by an old man and by the huntress Atalanta, and surrounded by mourners which include Venus, Cupid and Meleager's dog. The wooded landscape includes a small church and, in the upper left beside a tree trunk, a boar to symbolize the boar which terrorized the land and which Meleager slew. At Meleager's feet, a torch, shield, hunting horn and spear. A pattern of acanthus leaves on the underside of the bowl; the baluster-shaped stem embossed with rams' heads, acanthus leaves and fruit motifs.

Ernst Jansz. van Vianen was cousin to the innovative and renowned Utrecht silversmiths Adam and Paulus van Vianen. Ernst, though, was never accepted as a member of the Utrecht guild of goldsmiths and his output is small, almost certainly because he abandoned the trade in 1612 to concentrate on running a brewery he had inherited from his father (ter Molen (1984), I, p.115). Because there is no record of a maker's mark for Ernst, identification of his works rests on comparative stylistic and other documentary evidence. Identification is also helped by the fact that Ernst appears to have collaborated with family members on some works. The marks on the V&A 'Meleager' tazza are identical to those on another tazza dated 1602, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Stylistic and documentary comparisons suggests the Amsterdam tazza was the result of a collaboration between different members of the van Vianen family. The Amsterdam tazza has an embossed scene in the bowl signed with the initials 'EDV' (the Latinized form 'Ernestus de Viana'). The scene depicts the gods on Mount Olympus, and the source for the composition is a design by Paulus van Vianen (now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin). Given Ernst's collaboration with his cousin Paulus over this design, it is possible that the maker's mark of three lozenges in a shield on both the Amsterdam and the V&A tazzas belongs to another member of the van Vianen family who was a registered goldsmith. Jan Sael van Vianen, whose name appears in the guild register of goldsmiths between 1598 and 1616, is a likely candidate, although unfortunately no mark actually accompanies his name (see Houtzager (1970), no. 39 and the photograph of the register after p. vii).
Rosenberg (1928), III. iv, no. 7712, regretted the loss of the register of Utrecht goldsmiths marks for the years around 1600, and cautiously identified the mark as Ernst's own because it appears on the initialled Amsterdam tazza. The mark of three lozenges in a shield was also registered to another Utrecht goldsmith of the period, Aelbert Verhaer, which has led to the suggestion that Ernst was responsible for making only the tazza bowl, and that Verhaer made the stem and foot (den Blaauwen (1979), no. 8).
The similarity of their subject-matter and their identical date and maker strongly suggest the Amsterdam and the V&A tazzas were made as a pair. The V&A tazza, although not signed by Ernst, can also be linked to him on stylistic grounds. The pattern of oval motifs framed by scrolling cartouches which runs around its foot reappears around the upper rim of a highly ornate standing lidded cup made in 1604 for the Brewers' guild of Haarlem. Records show that Ernst was employed to chase the decoration on this cup, and received 90 florins 'for the chasing and carving of St Martin with the cripple and also for the moulding and construction of the silver cup', as well as 32 florins 'for the chasing of the cover, body and casing of the silver cup' (De Utrechtse edelsmeden Van Vianen, nos.1, 3, 3 and 33; Rosenberg (1928), III. iv, no. 7713, and den Blaauwen (1979), no. 11).
The Museum acquired the tazza for £36 in 1853, and identified it originally as French, about 1660 (South Kensington Museum: inventory of art objects, p.80).
[NB. While the term ‘cripple’ has been used in this record, it has since fallen from usage and is now considered offensive. The term is repeated in this record in its original historical context.]
Although a skilled silversmith, little is known about Ernst Janz. van Vianen and only three works survive that have been attributed to him (Frederiks (1952), I, pp. 16 - 21 and no. 11). It seems he worked closely with his father, Jan, and his cousin, Paulus, to produce his works, as is shown particularly by another tazza (now in Amsterdam) which was probably made as a pair to this one. The embossing in the bowl of this tazza shows how he skilfully varied the depth of the relief to emphasise the relative importance of the figures (Meleager, central to the composition, is shown in high relief), but its use of late-Renaissance motifs inspired by Classical ornament, and its traditional form give no suggestion of the extraordinarily fluid and innovative designs which his cousins Adam and Paulus would produce in the following decades.

This vessel is of a type that has come to be known by the Italian word 'tazza'. The form -- a shallow bowl set on a central stem -- originated in sixteenth-century Venice and tazzas were originally made in Venetian glass. They served as wine glasses, because their wide, flat bowls brought the liquid into as much contact with the air as possible, and thereby allowed wine to breathe. They could also be used to serve small, sugary sweets, biscuits or fruit. Goldsmiths copied the form of the tazza, and by the end of the sixteenth century the bowls and stem were elaborately embossed and chased. (See Gruber (1980), pp. 70-72). The increasingly detailed decoration on these pieces made them less functional: highly-wrought examples would probably have been reserved for display rather than for use. It seems likely this particular tazza was part of a larger set, decorated with Classical scenes. A tazza now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, depicts the gods on Mount Olympus in the bowl, and is signed with Ernst's initials.

This is one of three surviving examples of work that can be attributed to the Utrecht silversmith Ernst Jansz. van Vianen. In part this is because his career in the trade appears to have been short, spanning from 1602, when works can be attributed to him, until 1614, when he inherited a brewery from his father. This shallow, highly decorated, bowl on a stem with a foot is a skilfully-wrought example of a form of vessel that had been popular since the early sixteenth-century. Generally referred to now as a 'tazza', after the Italian term, these footed bowls originated in Venice and were made in glass, but goldsmiths soon copied the form in precious metal. Sixteenth and seventeenth-century paintings show glass and metalwork tazzas being used to drink wine at table, or to serve delicacies such as biscuits, candied fruits, or fruit. The detailed scenes which decorate the bowls of precious metal examples suggest that many were also objects to be displayed and admired. Another, similar, tazza also made by Ernst in 1602 (and now in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum) suggests he had been commissioned to make a series of tazze depicting scenes from Classical mythology.

393-1853