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The Van Vianen family dominated kwab-style production of silver in the Dutch city of Utrecht. This salt cellar in the shape of the sea goddess Galatea (by the father, Adam) is formed from a single piece of silver, artfully pinched, stretched, and manipulated to create a striking, sculptural object. The imagery of the sea goddess, the sea monster, and shells perfectly fits the use of this object, which would have held salt in the bowl at the top.
Requires Photography
Galatea salt
Adam van Vianen (Dutch, about 1569–1627)
Dutch (Utrecht)
1624
Medium/Technique
Silver
Dimensions
Overall: 20 × 11.4 × 8.9 cm (7 7/8 × 4 1/2 × 3 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art
Accession Number2022.1923
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsSilver
The Van Vianen family dominated kwab-style production of silver in the Dutch city of Utrecht. This salt cellar in the shape of the sea goddess Galatea (by the father, Adam) is formed from a single piece of silver, artfully pinched, stretched, and manipulated to create a striking, sculptural object. The imagery of the sea goddess, the sea monster, and shells perfectly fits the use of this object, which would have held salt in the bowl at the top.
DescriptionStanding salt embossed and chased with Galatea, her hair encrusted with shells, supporting the salt container moulded with lobate folds and sinuous masks, seated on a sea monster with molten ornament flowing from his knobbly shell body.
Signed
Signed A.o 24. A.DE. VIANA. FE.
ProvenanceBaron Lionel Rothschild (b. 1808- d. 1879), London [see note 1]; by inheritance to his son, Nathan Mayer Rothschild (b. 1840 - d. 1915), London; by inheritance to his son, Lionel Walter Rothschild (b. 1868 – d. 1937), London; April 26-28, 1937, Rothschild collection sale, Sotheby’s, London, lot 257, to Aäron Vecht (dealer, b. 1886 – d. 1965), Amsterdam for £500. 1937/1938, Dutch collection [see note 2]. By 1948 until at least 1952, Frederik Hendrik Fentener van Vlissingen (b. 1882 – d. 1962), Utrecht and Vught [see note 3]. 1984, private collection, Netherlands [see note 4]. July 4, 2018, anonymous (Dutch private collection) sale, Sotheby’s, London, lot 10 to A. Aardewerk, The Hague; October 2018, sold by A. Ardewerk to Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, Naples, FL; 2022, gift of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 6, 2022)
NOTES:
[1] The salt was recorded in an inventory drawn up in March 1882, three years after Lionel Rothschild’s death (“A Salt-Cellar. Female on a Monster”). (Rothschild Archives, 000/848/Box 48; 000/176/11 Book no. 3). When the salt was sold from the Rothschild collection in 1937, it is said in the catalogue “not improbably” to have belonged –along with a tazza by Vianen--to the Amsterdam Goldsmith’s Guild and to have been taken by one of its members for protection against French plunder in 1812, and sold around 1820/21. The source of this information is not known.
[2] By 1937, the salt was said to be in a “Dutch collection;” see C. H. De Jonge, “Adam van Vianen, Zilversmid te Utrecht,” Oud Holland 54. No. 3 (1937), p. 107. The following year it was lent from a private collection to the Central Museum Utrecht, Tentoonstelling van oude Kunst uit particulier bezit, July 2 – September 15, 1938, no. 147.
[3] He lent the salt to two exhibitions at the Central Museum Utrecht: Utrecht's kunst, opkomst en bloei, 650-1650 (July 3 – October 3, 1948), cat. no. 185 and Utrechts zilver (October 10 – November 23, 1952), cat. no. 145.
[4] Johannes Rein ter Molen, “Van Vianen, een Utrechtse familie van zilversmeden met een internationale faam” (Ph.D. diss., University of Leiden, 1984), vol. II, cat. no. 437.
NOTES:
[1] The salt was recorded in an inventory drawn up in March 1882, three years after Lionel Rothschild’s death (“A Salt-Cellar. Female on a Monster”). (Rothschild Archives, 000/848/Box 48; 000/176/11 Book no. 3). When the salt was sold from the Rothschild collection in 1937, it is said in the catalogue “not improbably” to have belonged –along with a tazza by Vianen--to the Amsterdam Goldsmith’s Guild and to have been taken by one of its members for protection against French plunder in 1812, and sold around 1820/21. The source of this information is not known.
[2] By 1937, the salt was said to be in a “Dutch collection;” see C. H. De Jonge, “Adam van Vianen, Zilversmid te Utrecht,” Oud Holland 54. No. 3 (1937), p. 107. The following year it was lent from a private collection to the Central Museum Utrecht, Tentoonstelling van oude Kunst uit particulier bezit, July 2 – September 15, 1938, no. 147.
[3] He lent the salt to two exhibitions at the Central Museum Utrecht: Utrecht's kunst, opkomst en bloei, 650-1650 (July 3 – October 3, 1948), cat. no. 185 and Utrechts zilver (October 10 – November 23, 1952), cat. no. 145.
[4] Johannes Rein ter Molen, “Van Vianen, een Utrechtse familie van zilversmeden met een internationale faam” (Ph.D. diss., University of Leiden, 1984), vol. II, cat. no. 437.