{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O381149"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O381149/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2026PP3488/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2026PP3488/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2026PP3488","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2026PP3487","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AM4740","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2022ND1970","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017JU1486","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O381149/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O381149","accessionNumber":"M.186-1922","objectType":"Spice or comfit box","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"","artistMakerPerson":[],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[],"techniques":[],"materialsAndTechniques":"","categories":[],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"MET","id":"THES48599"},"images":["2026PP3488","2026PP3487","2006AM4740","2022ND1970","2017JU1486"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"020","id":"THES407546"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Spice or comfit Box","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1630","earliest":"1625-01-01","latest":"1634-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"This box is polyhedral and constructed from raised and folded silver sheets. Its hinged lid incorporates an internal compartment with a rectangular sliding cover. This cover is engraved with a shrouded corpse on a tomb accompanied by a skull, with the inscription “let this suffize where love supplize.” The exterior panels are chased and engraved with scrolling vegetal ornament, including identifiable flowers such as a Tudor rose, pansies, carnations, and pea pods. One scrolling element terminates in a monster’s head. The engraved decoration is enriched with\r\n\r\nblack mastic infill, while the panels are framed by a pattern of alternating circles and blocks (billets) that terminate with a four-petalled flower.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe florals, in combination with the image of a corpse, may introduce a moralising dimension, juxtaposing pleasure and consumption with reflection on mortality. The integration of concealed memento mori imagery within a functional container aligns with broader early modern practices in which luxury objects could simultaneously delight and admonish.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe dense ornament relates to decorative vocabularies circulating in northern Europe in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, particularly those disseminated through embroidery and ornament pattern books. Comparable floral motifs and scrolling frameworks appear in German and Netherlandish design publications of the period and are characteristic of so-called ‘blackwork’ decoration (from the German Schwarzornament, referring to the extensive use of black areas), found on watch backs, jewellery, and small silver objects around 1620–1630.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Spice or comfit box.Silver, English. Unmarked, c. 1630. H.4.5cm, W. 4.3 cm, WT 54 g/1 oz 16 dwt","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Philippa Glanville, Silver in Tudor and Early Stuart England: A Social History and Catalogue of the National Collection, 1480 - 1660, with Victoria and Albert Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum, 1990), 111."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["M.186-1922"],"accessionNumberNum":"186","accessionNumberPrefix":"M","accessionYear":1922,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-06-02","recordCreationDate":"2009-06-24","availableToBook":true}}