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.

Provenance

J Dunn-Gardner; Christie's, 1902; Sir Ernest Cassel; then by descent.


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