This large, lobed dish or plooischotel is a fine example of the floral style that became fashionable in Dutch silver in the second half of the 17th century. Eight boldly embossed flowers decorate the wide, scalloped rim of this dish, each in an auricular-style cartouche. A style that emerged in the first half of the 17th century. The rim of this shallow, round dish is divided into eight large, diagonally folded lobes, each with a single embossed Dutch garden flower on a long, leafy stem. Each flower is surrounded by a cartouche with auricular ornaments. The circular central area is decorated with an embossed representation of Ceres seated on two sheaves of wheat, holding a sickle in her right hand. The bowl stands on a curved rim.
A Dordrecht Lobed Dish
Fruytschaal
Plooischotels like this one are extremely rare today because so few have survived, but they were more common in the 17th century. But even then, they were special objects, used mainly as showpieces and depicted as such in paintings. The lottery print published in 1689 to raise money for the rebuilding of Durgerdam after the fire, shows a pleated dish without any designs in the lobes. It was one of the prizes that could be won in the lottery and was described as a Silvere fruytschaal, waardigh met fatsoen 105 guld; 105 guilders was half of the average worker’s annual salary. Several paintings from the same period depict these dishes demonstrating this custom. In 1678, for example, Emanuel de Witte painted a family in an interior in which a girl offers her father fruit from a silver plooischotel (coll. Alte Pinakothek Munich).
Abraham van Beyeren’s still life from 1667, now in the collection of the LACMA, also shows a lobed plate with fruit on top (see detail below). The silver lobed dish model was emulated in Delftware, where both plain white and decorated examples appear.
Imaginative Bouquets
The 16th century saw a growing interest in the collection and study of exotic flowers and plants. The Hortus Botanicus in Leiden was founded in 1594 (the first botanical garden in the Netherlands), and more and more people began to engage in both pursuits.
Flower still lifes became very popular. The first painter to focus exclusively on flower still lifes was Ambrosius Bosschaert. Around 1618, he painted a huge bouquet in which each flower was accurately represented (coll. Mauritshuis). However, the 30 different flowers shown did not come into bloom at the same time. Nevertheless, it remained common to combine flowers that bloomed at different times of the year in still lifes, in imaginative bouquets. Floral decoration also became fashionable on Dutch silver in the second half of the 17th century. They were popular and regularly applied ornaments, as can be seen on this dish.
Flowers were only beautiful for a short time, so they were used to represent the transience of existence. The flowers embossed on the wide rim of this dish include tulips, a sunflower, a rose, daffodils and an anemone. In addition to impermanence, most flowers had other meanings. The tulip symbolises vanity and wealth, the sunflower devotion, the rose love, the daffodil vanity and self-love and the anemone death.
Auricular Style
The cartouches or frames of the flowers are designed in the Auricular style. This style is the most important and spectacular contribution the Netherlands made to the development of the decorative arts in Europe. The Dutch inventors of this art form, the silversmiths Paulus and Adam van Vianen and Johannes Lutma, enjoyed unprecedented celebrity status in their day. The organic, flowing and lobed shapes are subtly incorporated in this dish.
Fertility
The goddess Ceres is chased from the centre of the plate and shown holding a sickle and sheaves of grain in the background. Her name is derived from the Latin Cerealis, meaning ‘of grain’ or ‘related to grain’. In Roman mythology, Ceres is the goddess of agriculture, fertility and the harvest. Her favour brought mankind abundant harvests and fertile crops, but her wrath brought disease, drought and famine. She was usually portrayed as a matron and her attributes included the sickle, stalks of grain and the Horn of Plenty. Her Greek counterpart is Demeter, one of the 12 Olympian gods.
The Silversmith
Lambert de Hasque’s family was active in the cloth trade in Liège and, like many textile merchants from the Southern Netherlands, had fled to the north to escape the Spanish. The Hasques settled in Dordrecht, where on 22 December 1630, Lambert got engaged to Peternella Heerman’s daughter. Her father, Daniel Heermans, was also a cloth merchant and lived near the Pelserbrug in Dordrecht. The civil marriage took place a month later on 5 January 1631, followed by the church wedding on 12 January in the Waal Church in Dordrecht. Lambert was already registered as a goldsmith at the time of their engagement.
Marks
Hallmarked on the rim with the city assay mark a rose for Dordrecht, the Dutch lion, the date letter V for 1665 and the maker’s mark LH with an anchor in between the letters for Lambert de Hasque. Also marked with the tax mark of Rotterdam, 1795.
