Ewer

Ewers and basins of this size were either part of dressing table services or were independent pieces. They were used for the daily grooming in the bedroom rather than for the rinsing of hands at the dining table or for display on the sideboard or tiered buffet. During the later seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, the silver toilet set evolved into one of the most fashionable luxury accessories and was an eloquent symbol of the owner’s social status.



A lidded ewer such as this held warm scented water for washing the hands and face at the beginning of the toilet. A remarkable variety of scented waters was available, many emphasizing a single floral note or derived from fruits, while others were more complex. Some had purported benefits such as removing smallpox scars with regular use, improving the memory or lifting the spirits.



Here, amidst the strapwork decoration influenced by the designs of Jean Berain, and the cut-card work, is another fashionable device. Small cast medallions with the heads of Roman men and women in profile as well as figures of putti are applied on both the ewer and the basin.



Together with these pieces, several other items (48.187.269,.316,.325) in the Wentworth Collection may have originally been part of a large toilet service supplied by a number of different Parisian silversmiths during the 1720’s.



Catherine D. Wentworth

Daughter of one of the founders of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Catherine D. Wentworth (1865-1948) was an art student and painter who lived in France for thirty years. She became one of the most important American collectors of eighteenth-century French silver and on her death in 1948 bequeathed part of her significant collection of silver, gold boxes, French furniture and textiles to the Metropolitan Museum. The collection is particularly strong in domestic silver, much of it provincial, and includes a number of rare early pieces.