Photo: courtesy of Sotheby's
Bell salt
Artist: Artist not known
Location: Ashmolean Museum
Date: 1597-1598
Materials: silver gilt
Dimensions: height: 23.5cm
Grant:
Amount Paid: £30,000 (Total: £150,226; tax remission)
Vendor: Anonymous (through Sotheby's)
Review number: 5615 (2005)
Provenance:
J Dunn-Gardner; Christie's, 1902; Sir Ernest Cassel; then by descent.
Description:
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.
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