NO RESERVE: A CERAMIC POT WITH INSCRIPTIONS AND CHRISTIAN DECORATIONS ON A METAL MOUNT, PROBABLY 19T

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NO RESERVE: A CERAMIC POT WITH INSCRIPTIONS AND CHRISTIAN DECORATIONS ON A METAL MOUNT, PROBABLY 19TH CENTURY OR EARLIER Of cylindrical form, tapering slightly toward the base, the body moulded in relief with a continuous arcade of round-headed arches supported on slender colonnettes with foliate capitals, each bay framing a seated figure. The vessel is set within a gilt-metal mount comprising a broad rim above and a narrow foot-band below. The upper mount is cast with a band of lion masks in high relief above a lattice of crosshatching, over a register of stylised palmettes and foliate scrollwork; the lower mount is chased with a running Greek-key band. The surface of the figural frieze retains a warm gilding with reddish tonalities showing through in the recesses. The figural frieze is arranged as a series of arcaded compartments, each occupied by a seated figure engaged with a book or scroll, several nimbed. One bay shows a haloed evangelist writing at a lectern; another a female figure enthroned with a child, of Virgin and Child type, flanked by attendant figures; further bays show seated authors or prophets holding open codices. Above each arch runs a band of Latin capitals, apparently identifying the figures or supplying tituli, though the legends as visible in the photograph are only partially legible and would require direct examination to transcribe. The iconographic programme, combining evangelists, a Virgin and Child, and further seated authors beneath a continuous arcade, follows the medieval formula used for reliquary caskets, portable altars, and liturgical vessels, in which the arcade functions as a schematic architecture of the heavenly church. The material presents as a moulded ceramic body, gilt and cold-painted to imitate metalwork, mounted with cast and gilt copper-alloy rim and foot. The imitation of Romanesque or early Gothic metalwork in ceramic, with applied metal mounts to complete the illusion, belongs to a well-established 19th-century European practice of producing decorative and devotional objects in the medieval taste, drawing on the ecclesiastical treasuries of the Rhineland, Limoges, and northern Italy for its models. The lion-mask rim and Greek-key foot are classicising additions typical of such historicist assemblages, where motifs of different periods are combined in a single object intended to evoke rather than reproduce a specific medieval prototype. This pot exemplifies the 19th-century revivalist taste for medieval Christian liturgical forms, in which the visual vocabulary of Romanesque relief sculpture, arcaded evangelist portraits, and gilt-metal mounts was recombined in new materials for a domestic devotional or decorative market. Its interest lies in the ambition of its figural programme and in the technical hybrid of moulded ceramic body with cast metal mounts, a combination characteristic of the historicist workshops of the period. Dimensions: Diameter: 20cm, Height: 16.5cm

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