Object details
Object number
M21w16
Creator(s)
Italian, Venice
Title
Spice Holder
Date
early 19th century
Medium
Silver
Provenance
Entered Isabella Stewart Gardner's collection at an unknown date.
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Stamped (bottom of base): a banded globe surrounded by seven stars, the whole within a seven-sided polygon
Stamped (bottom of base): a comet
Stamped (bottom of base): N in circle with fragment of another letter above (top of stem)
Dimensions
34.5 cm (13 9/16 in.)
Commentary
This spice holder is a Jewish ceremonial object used during Havdalah, a service that marks the end of Shabbat and ushers in the new week. Whole spices, like cloves and cinnamon sticks, would have been held in the body of this object, which was made in Venice in the early nineteenth century but based on an earlier type. Isabella Stewart Gardner most likely purchased it as a "Venetian reliquary." This object was also once thought to be a Torah finial.
Gallery
Dutch Room
Bibliography
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 183. (as a Venetian reliquary)Kaeley Ferguson, "Not Your Grandmother's Silver Cabinet," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 12 January 2021, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/not-your-grandmothers-silver-cabinet
Rights and reproductions
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