Pair of Saltcellars
AZ037.1: M. Lazare, Marseilles, 1850; Mr. George Field, London, 1893; M. Charles Stein, Paris, 1899; M.J.H. Fitzhenry, Paris, 1910; from whom purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan. AZ037.2: M.P. Jamarin, Paris, 1900; Wencke, Hamburg; purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan through Jacques Seligmann & Co., 1906.
These elaborate salt cellars, intended for an elegant tabletop, are a rare example of the extremely fine complex ceramics produced during the mid-16th century in France. They may have been made at Saint-Porchaire, a town in the southwest, or in a Paris workshop. Only about 60 known examples of this type survive. One cellar is decorated with salamanders, the emblem of the French King Francis I. The other is adorned with interlaced crescents, the insignia of Diane de Poitiers, a noble courtier and consort of Henry II.