A bowl such as this, with tall curved handles, typically serves the Christian church as a vessel for holy water. It is usually paired with a hyssop, a small rod named for the herb used by the ancient Jews to sprinkle water on worshippers. The hyssop’s long handle rested within one of the lobes at the vessel’s rim. The priest carries the aspersorium and hyssop during church services, using them to sprinkle holy water on congregants.
Many such vessels have survived, although few retain their handles and accompanying hyssops. Examples were made throughout Latin America, and most share the lobed rim, cast handle loops, and simple foot seen on this example. Some have a taller, more elegant urn shape than this broad variant; still others more closely resemble large buckets. Published examples include highly repousséd and chased forms as well as simpler works bearing engraved dedications.
With an emphasis on the large encircling planished lobes, this aspersorium recalls Portuguese two-handled cups of the seventeenth century. Such vessels may have been brought to Brazil, Portugal’s South American colony, where they influenced silversmiths at work in the Spanish-speaking regions. In New England, where sailing ships regularly departed for the Dutch colony Surinam, north of Brazil, among other distant ports, a lobed bowl made by Jeremiah Dummer has long intrigued scholars for its similarity to this distinctive form.
With its lobed shape, answered from below by reverse curves that rise from the base, as well as its boldly chased strapwork, the aspersorium resembles at least two other published examples that have been attributed to Colombia.

This text has been adapted from "Silver of the Americas, 1600-2000," edited by Jeannine Falino and Gerald W.R. Ward, published in 2008 by the MFA. Complete references can be found in that publication.

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