Small rock crystal ewer with a boy, without a handle
1550 - 1575. Rock crystal / Hyaline quartz, Enamel, Gold, Silver gilt. Room 079BA vessel composed of three pieces of rock crystal and two partially enamelled silver gilt mounts, practically the same as O75, though lacking its handle. The globular body is made up of two pieces assembled with a moulding. The upper one is undecorated while the lower one has a bas-relief ornamentation of helicoidal gadroons and darts. A short collar joins it to the round foot. The piece is completed by two upper mounts forming a neck and lid in enamelled silver, with a pattern of arabesques embedded in opaque blue enamel. It belongs to a group of vessels whose carving and mounts are thought by Alcouffe to be French. All datable to the third quarter of the 16th century, they are based on the models for vessels designed by the Parmesan Enea Vico and published in 1543, as well as other prints.
In the robbery of 1918, it lost the sculptures of boys which decorated the upper mount and acted as the vessel’s spout and handle. It also lost the overlaid cartouches with rubies and the finial with the spray of flowers that are preserved on its pair, O75.
The Museo del Prado has the photograph by Juan Laurent y Minier, Vase, cristal de roche taillé et gravé, montures d’or et émail, XVIe siècle, règne de Henri III, c. 1879. Museo del Prado, HF0835/47 (L. Arbeteta, in press).
