(2/3) The silver mount of the screw-cap flask is informed by elegant simplicity: the body of the exotic vessel rising above a domed foot-ring consists of the egg of an African ostrich. It is encircled by three ornamental strap braces of sheet metal decorated with cut-card patterns that link the base with the mouth and the screw cap of the flask. Silver canisters with similar screw caps occur in south German silver from the early seventeenth century. Worth a mention are a comparable pair of ostrich-egg écuelles in the Green Vault in Dresden @skd.museum, which came into the possession of Johann Georg I, Elector of Saxony, in 1626 from the estate of Erdmuthe, Duchess of Pomerania (1561–1623), and were also made ca 1600.
@tefaf
Ostrich egg screw-cap flask
from the Kunstkammer of the Margraves and Grand Dukes of Baden-Baden
South German, ca 1600
Ostrich egg, silver fire-gilt
Height 20 cm
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