Stoup

Cauldron with a truncated cone shape and sinuous profile with a tapered, protruding rim. The circular, bell-shaped bottom set on a raised, stepped base bears similar ornaments to the recipient, while a bulky, scallop-shaped form is arranged in the narrowing of the neck. Borders of pearls in relief ed by schematic waves and crowned by triple floral filament, convex scallops and crowns of pointed acanthus form the decorative motifs. The handle is missing. The inscription around the edge gives the piece's weight: 14 marcos, 4 ounces and 9 adarmes.

Since there are no marks that allow us to reveal both its place of origin and its author, we must turn to its style and morphology to propose its classification. Its type departs from the stoup model characteristic of New Spain as of the seventeenth century, comprised of a lower bulbous part, truncated cone shaped or cylindrical body and open mouth with lobed cups. Its configuration, a reflection of the new neoclassical currents, is otherwise defined by two opposing truncated cones shaped bodies, the upper one, of greater diameter, constitutes the cauldron while the lower one forms the base on which it sits.

The scalloped decoration around the rim is characteristic of the previous stage which the recipient nonetheless maintains, divided in sections of smooth convex profile. The point where the handle s the rim also boasts the cast heads of cherubs, with a lock on the forehead, and curls that are confused with the feathers and wings with two volutes opposite one another on the upper rim, typified by Mexican silver work and repeated using wax from the same century. At this moment of transition and consolidation of academic aesthetics, synthesis between the tradition of New Spain and the adoption of the new classicist language, the style of this stoup in the Amparo Museum tells us that it dates to around the final years of the eighteenth century.