Aquamaniles.(Current and coming)

In the hands of virtuoso metalsmiths during the Middle Ages, a simple vessel for pouring water to wash one's hands metamorphosed into an object of great beauty--in effect a small-scale sculpture. These vessels, known as aquamaniles, had a hole for filling and a hole for pouring and were most useful in the medieval period, when even in the houses of noblemen fingers were used to eat most foods and hand-washing was an important component of dining. The water used in this way was often scented with herbs or fruit. As a fourteenth-century treatise on cooking includes instructions for gilding a chicken, it is not surprising that tablewares were considered excellent vehicles for artistic expression. Churches too were appointed with the most costly and ornate objects, among them aquamaniles that priests used to wash their hands before celebrating the Eucharist, an act associated with spiritual cleansing.

Aquamaniles have been avidly collected since at least the nineteenth century, because then as now they were admired for their whimsical shapes, sophisticated craftsmanship, and the technical skill necessary to fashion them. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has a large collection of these objects made between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Some thirty of them, and loans from other institutions, will be on view in an exhibition entitled Lions, Dragons, and Other Beasts: Aquamanilia of the Middle Ages, Vessels for Church and Table. The show is jointly organized by the museum and the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, in New York City in a continuation of their collaboration over the last five years. The collaboration was initiated in order to enable students interested in museum careers to participate in the research, organization, and installation of an exhibition. The present show is on view at the Bard Graduate Center through October 15. A central focus is the materials and methods used to make these pieces, which are the first hollow-cast vessels made in the West.

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Like many decorative arts objects, aquamaniles were made ...