François Briot, cruche de Schenk, France ou Nuremberg... Lot n° 48

Francois Briot Damblain 1545 - 1616 Montbéliard Schenk jug France or Nuremberg c. 1585/90 Bronze , cast, turned and chased, Remnants of gilding In the Renaissance, such jugs were both utilitarian objects and works of art. They are important ornamental objects of metalwork and goldsmith's art. The elegant silhouette of this masterpiece is reminiscent of one of the models on display at the Renaissance Museum in Écouen. Similar decorative objects can be found in important collections and major museums throughout the world. Mannerist-inspired decorations cover this elegantly shaped object body. Ram's heads, leaves and rocailles, ribbons, wings, and horned animal heads, entwine across the entire body. A coat of arms medallion in the center. A ram's head with pointed horns also stands out below the beak. The expressive handle, in the shape of a dragon grasping a snake and ending in a manneristic mascaron in high relief, characterizes this museum gift jug. Artists such as Wenzel Jamnitzer (1507/1508-85) or François Briot (c. 1545-1616), who worked both in France and in Nuremberg, created ornamental and relief representations on goldsmith's, silver drift, bronze and pewter castings with incomparable virtuosity during this period. The Temperantia bowl in the Louvre in Paris, made by Francois Briot, on which delicate-limbed arabesques and grotesques wind around mythological scenes, is a case in point. Comparable jugs and bowls are also on display in N.Y. at the Metropolitan Museum or at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Comparable objects in the most important museums of the world: Musée de Louvre, Paris, Metropolitan Museum, N.Y., Getty Museum, Malibu, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Grassimuseum, Leipzig Renaissance Museum, Écouen, Staatliche Kunstsammlung, Dresden, and many others.