Art Funded
Bell salt
Photo: courtesy of Sotheby's
Artist not known
Ashmolean Museum
1597-1598
Bell salts seemed to become fashionable in the 1550s. This salt has three sections, the lower one on three ball feet, and the upper one functions as a pepper caster. It is chased with strapwork and foliate decoration and bears the maker's mark IB below a horseshoe. Salts were of the highest symbolic importance on the English medieval table and were widespread by the 16th century.
- Medium: silver gilt
- Dimensions: height: 23.5cm
- Art Fund Grant: £30000 ( Total: £150,226; Tax Remission)
- ArtFunded in: 2005
- Vendor: Anonymous (through Sotheby's)
Provenance
J Dunn-Gardner; Christie's, 1902; Sir Ernest Cassel; then by descent.
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