French silver embossed ewer and basin

An image of Ewer and basin. Unknown (silversmith). Silver; embossed, chased and matted, and decorated with acanthus leaves and putti amid scrolling foliage. Helmet-shaped ewer on a short stem and oval foot, with projecting covered spout, the cover perforated at the end; cast harp-shaped handle; and covex cover with a raised circle in the centre and a cast 'turned' finial. The body of is decorated below the rim with a frieze of putti amid scrolling foliage separated by a filet from a calyx of acanthus leaves growing upwards from the junction with the stem which has a gadrooned 'frill' half way up. The spout is wrapped in acanthus foliage, and there is a leaf extending downwards from the top of the handle. The foot has a border of scrolling foliage, and the cover has acanthus foliage radiating from the raised centre. (A) Oval basin with applied reeded edge, wide rim, and shallow oval well. It has a plain centre, and on the rim, four putti amid scrolling foliage with a matted ground. The putti among foliage may have been derived from engraved designs by Jean Lepautre (1618-82). The ewer and basin are unmarked but are most likely to have been made in Paris. Height (ewer - to finial top) 21 cm, weight (ewer - whole) 880 g, length (basin) 41.5 cm, width (basin) 30.2 cm, weight (basin - whole) 923 g, circa 1656 to 1660.

Terms of use

These images are provided for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND). To license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who will discuss fees, terms and waivers.

Download this image

Creative commons explained - what it means, how you can use our's and other people's content.

Ewer and basin. Unknown (silversmith). Silver; embossed, chased and matted, and decorated with acanthus leaves and putti amid scrolling foliage. Helmet-shaped ewer on a short stem and oval foot, with projecting covered spout, the cover perforated at the end; cast harp-shaped handle; and covex cover with a raised circle in the centre and a cast 'turned' finial. The body of is decorated below the rim with a frieze of putti amid scrolling foliage separated by a filet from a calyx of acanthus leaves growing upwards from the junction with the stem which has a gadrooned 'frill' half way up. The spout is wrapped in acanthus foliage, and there is a leaf extending downwards from the top of the handle. The foot has a border of scrolling foliage, and the cover has acanthus foliage radiating from the raised centre. (A) Oval basin with applied reeded edge, wide rim, and shallow oval well. It has a plain centre, and on the rim, four putti amid scrolling foliage with a matted ground. The putti among foliage may have been derived from engraved designs by Jean Lepautre (1618-82). The ewer and basin are unmarked but are most likely to have been made in Paris. Height (ewer - to finial top) 21 cm, weight (ewer - whole) 880 g, length (basin) 41.5 cm, width (basin) 30.2 cm, weight (basin - whole) 923 g, circa 1656 to 1660.

Image data

Accession Number: M.468 & A-1985
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Photographer name: Andrew Morris
Image height: 769 pixels
Image width: 1023 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.4 (Windows)
Filesize: 158.23kB

Key words

17th Century acanthus Baroque basin chased embossed ewer Fitz_AA French gadroons handle handled leaves putti putto Silver silverware spout spouted

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025)
            "French silver embossed ewer and basin"
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-206481 Accessed: 2025-04-04 11:15:23

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-206481
            |title=French silver embossed ewer and basin
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-04-04 11:15:23|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/images/media-206481

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa37/large_M_468_20_26_20A_1985_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Ewer and basin"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">French silver embossed ewer and basin</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>