This bronze bucket with a single hoop handle held the purifying Holy Water for use during baptisms and other church services. Made in Venice, it has engraved and chased decoration of a foliage pattern interspersed with shields of arms.

Bucket forms evolved from wooden examples. The Church was the first to use buckets of brass, which were grander than wood. Initially there were many basic similarities between the two. Brass buckets copied the tapering profile of wooden buckets and were decorated with horizontal lines encircling the rim, centre and base. Gradually metalworkers began to evolve forms particular to brass. They cast buckets with a circular stepped foot which they could decorate with a pattern of perforations. They sometimes incorporated inscriptions around the side of the vessel on the more elaborate examples. Handles were often a single iron hoop, as here, but some examples had a double hooped handle in cast brass.