{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O76198"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76198/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AK4481/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AK4481/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AK4481","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2008BV3238","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2008BV3237","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O76198/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O76198","accessionNumber":"841&A-1891","objectType":"Lidded bowl","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"The brass bowl dates from the first half of the 16th century. Its flat, tight-fitting lid suggests it may have been a container for a measured quantity of spices or other delicacies. This bowl displays the coat-of-arms of an unidentified Italian family.\r\n\r\nVenice, during this period, traded and fought extensively with the Turkish and Arab empires which bordered the Mediterranean basin. Venetian merchants brought back to the city goods that had an immediate influence on local design, and eventually the rest of Europe.\r\n\r\nThe bowl is decorated in the 'Veneto-Saracenic' style with motifs and patterns inspired by Islamic art forms. The bowl is <i>damascened</i>, a technique which involved decorating engraved iron, brass or steel with gold or silver wire. \r\n\r\nThis bowl is a good example of the Venetian reinterpretation of Middle Eastern metalworking traditions. Its form is Italian: no vessels of this type occur in the Islamic world. Its bands of ornament simplify Islamic knot and script motifs. The blank shields on the sides are intended for the arms of a European owner. \r\n\r\nThe influence of Islamic art on Italian design was profound. The arabesque pattern, base on a stylised plant with a winding stem, was studied and copied by contemporary Italian artists. By the middle of the 16th century, the arabesque as a form of ornament was beginning to influence craftsmen all over Europe, and became incorporated into the development of European ornamental design, until the decline of the Rococo in the late 18th century.","physicalDescription":"Shallow covered bowl with steep sides and flat, tight-fitting lid, brass, engraved and inlaid with silver and a black compound, with minute arabesques, medallions with shields and ornamental bands.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"Brass","id":"AAT10946"},{"text":"Silver","id":"AAT11029"}],"techniques":[{"text":"Engraving","id":"AAT53829"},{"text":"Damascening","id":"AAT54019"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Brass, engraved with silver inlay","categories":[{"text":"Metalwork","id":"THES48920"},{"text":"Containers","id":"THES48972"},{"text":"Household objects","id":"THES48939"},{"text":"Islam","id":"THES48932"}],"styles":[{"text":"Veneto-Saracenic","id":"x35138"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"MES","id":"THES48607"},"images":["2006AK4481","2008BV3238","2008BV3237"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"63","id":"THES49737"},"free":"","case":"CA8","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"63","id":"THES49737"},"free":"","case":"CA8","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Lidded Bowl","id":""}],[{"text":"Lid","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Damascus","id":"x32596"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"possibly"}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1500 - 1550","earliest":"1500-01-01","latest":"1550-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"6.0","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Diameter","value":"14.6","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Measured for the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"Coat-of-Arms","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Unidentified"}],"objectHistory":"This covered bowl was made during the first half of the sixteenth century probably for the Venetian market. An Italian coat-of-arms is engraved on the medallion on the side. The Museum acquired the bowl in 1891 when it was valued at £20.","historicalContext":"This lidded bowl is a good example of the Venetian reinterpretation of Middle Eastern metalworking traditions. Its form is Italian: no vessels of this type occur in the Islamic world. Its bands of ornament simplify Islamic knot and script motifs. The blank shields on the sides are intended for the arms of a European owner. \r\n\r\nThe bowl belongs to a type of metalwork formerly known as 'Veneto-Saracenic': elaborately decorated wares including dishes, bowls, candlesticks and inkstands with traditional Islamic motifs including twirling knots and stylised, interwined leaves ('arabesques') decorating the entire surface, much of which is highlighted in inlaid silver-wire ('damascening'). The popularity of these items among Venetian families led them for a long time to be attributed to Muslim craftsmen ('Saracens') working in Venice. This theory has long been discredited on the grounds that the Venetian guild system was too strict to allow Muslim craftsmen to work there.\r\n\r\nStrong trade links between Venice and the Middle East are now considered to be the reason for the prominence of this type of Metalwork in Venice. The Mamluk export industry based in Damascus was a major source of inlaid brassware for the Venetian market in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The popularity of these wares eventually inspired Venetian metalworkers to develop a host of imitation-Islamic brasses of their own.The bowl is damascened, a technique which involved decorating engraved iron, brass or steel with gold or silver wire. \r\n\r\nIn Venice, the production of brass dishes and vessels flourished in the first half of the 16th century. They were very elaborately decorated but not with traditional European linear ornamentation. Venice, during this period, traded and fought extensively with the Turkish and Arab empires which bordered the Mediterranean basin. Thus Venetian merchants brought back to the city Near Eastern goods that had an immediate influence on local design, and eventually the rest of Europe. \r\n\r\nIt has been suggested (Ward, LaNiece, Hook and White, 1995) that the tight fitting lids and regular sizes of this type of bowl meant it was used as packaging for selling measured quantities of spices and other goods across Europe.","briefDescription":"Middle East, Metalwork. Bowl with curved base and flat lid, brass with engraved and silver-inlaid decoration of knotted pseudo-Arabic inscriptions against dense foliate scrollwork, with roundels bearing blank heraldic shields, Damascus, Syria, 1500-50","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Sylvia Auld, &lt;i&gt;Renaissance Venice, Islam and Mahmud the Kurd. A metalworking enigma&lt;/i&gt;, 2004, no.2.61, p.182."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Behrens-Abouseif, Doris, \"Veneto-Saracenic Metalwork, a Mamluk Art\", <u>Mamluk Studies Review</u>, IX (2), Middle East Documentation Center (MEDOC), University of Chicago, 2005, pp. 147-172"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Ward-Jackson, Peter. 'Some main streams and Tributaries in European Ornament (1500 to 1750). The Arabesque' <u>In</u>: <u>Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin</u>, Vol.3, 3, 1967. pp. 90-103"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"James Allan, <u>Metalwork of the Islamic World: The Aron Collection</u> (London: Sotheby's, 1986)"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Ward, R., La Niece, S., Hook, D. and White, R., \"Veneto-Saracenic\" Metalwork: An Analysis of the Bowls and Incense Burners in the British Museum\", in Hook, D. and Gaimster, D.R.M. (eds.), <u>Trade and Discovery: The Scientific Study of Artefacts from Post-Medieval Europe and Beyond</u>, London 1995, pp. 235-258"}],"production":"There is ongoing scholarly debate about the origins of so-called Veneto-Saracenic metalwork. The traditional view that these items were made by Muslim craftsmen working in Venice has been discredited since the 1970s when Hans Huth suggested that the Venetian guild system would not have tolerated foreign craftsmen working in Venice. James Allan suggested many of these pieces may be attributed to Damascus and Cairo for stylistic reasons.\r\n\r\nRecent research on this material has been done by Sylvia Auld (2004) and Doris Behrens-Abouseif (2005) (see: References). Auld summarises the debate to date and based on earlier research by Ward, LaNiece, Hook and White, places this bowl in a group of late Mamluk wares made in either Egypt or Syria. \r\n\r\nHowever, according to Tim Stanley, Asia Dept at the V&A, this lidded bowl is a good example of the Venetian reinterpretation of Middle Eastern metalworking traditions. Its form is Italian: no vessels of this type occur in the Islamic world. Its bands of ornament simplify Islamic knot and script motifs. (December 2008)","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"Arabesques","id":"AAT10206"},{"text":"medallions","id":"AAT77354"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"GALLERY 117:\r\nRound-Bottomed Bowl\r\nAbout 1500-1600\r\nVenetian brassworkers, unlike their counterparts in Frahce and Germany, covered their wares with intricate engraving often overlaid with silver. In this they were influenced imports of Middle Eatsern and Turkish brassware. The stylised plant-and-stem pattern here is a staple of Islamic design and is known in the west as 'arabesque'.\r\nItaly, Venice [<i>see Attributions Note</i>]\r\nBrass with silver wire\r\nMuseum No. 841&A-1891","date":{"text":"15/03/2007","earliest":"2007-03-15","latest":"2007-03-15"}}],"partNumbers":["841A-1891","841-1891"],"accessionNumberNum":"841","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1891,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","Lid","Covered Bowl"],"assets":["2017KE2574","2019LP6388","2019LR4691","2019LU6978","2019LU2831","2019LV3390","2019LW3880"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-11-14","recordCreationDate":"2003-03-07","availableToBook":false}}