For a long time salt was a rare and expensive flavour enhancer. Saltshakers were therefore given a prominent place on the dining table and were often a most precious centrepiece. This shaker by Michiel de Bruyn van Berendrecht represents Bacchus - the god of wine - leaning against a vine bush. Both the pedestal, on which he sits, and the rim of the salt container are decorated with auricular ornaments. Garlands with bunches of grapes hang along the side of the container. De Bruyn van Berendrecht was a pupil of Adam van Vianen.
For a long time salt was a rare and expensive flavour enhancer. Saltshakers were therefore given a prominent place on the dining table and were often a most precious centrepiece. This shaker by Michiel de Bruyn van Berendrecht represents Bacchus - the god of wine - leaning against a vine bush. Both the pedestal, on which he sits, and the rim of the salt container are decorated with auricular ornaments. Garlands with bunches of grapes hang along the side of the container. De Bruyn van Berendrecht was a pupil of Adam van Vianen.
signatuur sokkel : (op sokkel bijna geheel verdwenen restanten van een oude signatuur)
Documentation
Adam, Paulus en Christiaen van Vianen; leven en werk, A.L. den Blaauwen, (Leiden, 1957), p. 31
Das niederländische Ohrmuschel-Ornament : Phänomen und Entwickelung dargestelt an den Werken und Entwürfen der Goldschmiedefamilien van Vianen und Lutma : Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorsgrades der Philoshophischen Fakultät der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität zu München, vorgelegt von Antje-Maria von Graevenitz, (Bamberg, 1973), p. 182
Dutch Silver : Embossed Ecclesiastical and Secular Plate from the renaissance until the end of the eighteenth century, J.W. Frederiks, (Den Haag, 1961), p. 51, nr. 101, afb. 115
