perfume-flask
- Museum number
- WB.265
- Description
-
Perfume flask; highly decorated column of boxwood; upper part in form of royal crown, with seated female figure surrounded by three cupids; body divided into three by figures of Faith, Hope and Charity; coat of arms and four crests in pairs between them triangular base, unscrews, represents emblems of the Evangelists; arms include: cross pattée, Imperial Eagle, Austria, demi-unicorn and pair of horns; inscribed.
- Production date
- 1688
- Dimensions
-
Height: 7.60 centimetres
-
Weight: 29 grammes
-
Width: 2.80 centimetres (max base)
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Width: 3.70 centimetres (max)
- $Inscriptions
-
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- Curator's comments
- Jeremy Warren [see below] has identified this as made for Johan Jakob, Graf von Thun-Hohenstein, a member of the Teutoic Order, a considerable supporter and patron of the Catholic Church near Salzaburg and in South Tyrol. The flask bears his arms and may have been made for a special occasion in the life of the province of the Teutonic Order to which he belonged. It is perhaps a chrismatory. For detailed biography and portrait see Warren 2017.
Provenance: Baron Anselm von Rothschild, Vienna, by 1866 (cat no. 45).
Bibliography: Charles Hercules Read, 'The Waddesdon Bequest: Catalogue of the Works of Art bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P., 1898', London, 1902, no. 265; O.M. Dalton, 'The Waddesdon Bequest', 2nd edn (rev), British Museum, London, 1927, no.265; J.Warren, "SCulpture in the Waddesdon Bequest", in P.Shirley and D.Thornton, eds., The Waddesdon Bequest, a new look, London 2017, pp. 92-93.
- Location
- On display (G2a/dc16)
- Acquisition date
- 1898
- Acquisition notes
- This collection is known as the Waddesdon Bequest under the terms of Baron Ferdinand Rothschild’s will.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- WB.265
