Feeding Bowl
1690
Hungary
This shell-shaped vessel—known as a feeding bowl—was used to serve strong broth or other liquid nourishment to the sick through a pierced well. The absence of marks suggests that the unknown goldsmith, who merged superior craftmanship with inventive design to create this piece, was guild-exempt while working as a court goldsmith. On the cover plate is an armorial roundel with a Latin inscription encircling the ibex (goat) crest of Count Michael Teleki de Szék (b. 1634), a wealthy statesman, military commander, and landlord. The engraved date 1690 is the year of the count’s death. He likely used the bowl himself during his final illness. A similar coat of arms of a rampant goat as a hexagonal dish in the Hungarian National Museum (Judit H. Kolba. Schätze des ungarischen Barock. Exh. cat. Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau. Hanau, 1991, p. 82, no. 41).
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Portable Diptych Sundial
ca. 1598
German
The growing production of mechanical clocks during the Renaissance had the effect of stimulating the construction of a variety of timekeeping instruments. Sundials were used for setting clocks, as well as for regulating their still inaccurate movements. Both the variety and number of sundials proliferated, but Nuremberg sundial makers specialized in small, folding, easily portable types made of ivory or wood. This dial, which can be used to tell the time in several different systems of counting the hours, was made to be used in Nuremberg's latitude of 49 1/2 degrees. Other portable sundials made in Nuremberg can be adjusted for use in several latitudes.
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