Boat-shaped tazza with a filigree foot
1650 - 1689. Silver gilt, Jasper.Room 079B
Vessel formed by a piece of hardstone and a filigree mount. The body consists of a low and severely everted bowl with an oval mouth, polylobulated by the eight gadroons separated by smaller ones which give the vessel its undulating form. Preserved on the round foot is a silver gilt mount with filigree leaves and cord patterns. Until 1918 it had two handles at the ends in the form of volutes, also decorated with filigree leaves. These handles have left their mark on the inner lining of the case. In about 1700, as Arbeteta recalled, some vessels in Milan were decorated with mounts similar to the one on the foot, among them the products from Metellino’s workshop, but the work on the handles in this case is more refined, in the style of Roman and Florentine production.
This tazza must have been very similar to another one that vanished in 1815, inventoried with the number I1401, whose handles, also filigree, were enriched with garnets. Both were given to the Dauphin by the Comte de Tessé. It is possible that the agate platter with a cruciform motif at the Prado, O63, featured similar work, since its case resembles that of the other two pieces.
Mounts similar to those which adorned this tazza at the Prado are found on a documented Milanese piece, a eucharistic casket donated to the College of San Bartolomé in Salamanca by Don Pedro Pacheco y Navarrete, who was a senator in Milan and governor of Cremona. Published by Valdovinos, the work is adorned with scrolls similar to those seen in Laurent’s photograph, taken when the Prado tazza was still complete. In this connection, the extraordinary Papal Nuncio had given the Prado’s platter O63 to the Dauphin in 1702, along with another tazza with which it formed a set, and which was not inherited by Philip V. The Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan preserves examples of low tazzas with filigree mounting similar to the piece discussed here, such as inv. no. 540 (no. 270 of the clock and silver collection).
The Museo del Prado has the photograph by Juan Laurent y Minier, Tasse ovale, anses en or ciselé et soucoupe, agate cornaline, montures d’argent doré et filigranes, XVIe siècle, règne de Henri III, c. 1879. Museo del Prado, HF0835/17.
