The shell was worked in an engraved and embossed silver plate. The bowl, of medium depth, is made up of sixteen concave and rectilinear staves fanned towards the edge, which take on an undulating profile. The hinge is born from the same body which, when rolled inwards, is transformed into a transverse handle in the form of a smooth t without decoration.
From the final decades of the seventeenth century, baptismal shells began to replace jugs and other pieces used to pour water in the baptism ceremony (1). The shape of the bowl, the handle or the type of s allow the appreciation of regional differences according to each case. The s in the form of small shells or scallops distinguish the carvings in Cuba at the beginning of the eighteenth century, while the Mexican pieces lack molten s and adopt almond, rounded or elongated shapes, with clamp, caryatid or iron rolled in volute as handles (2).
The abundance of the type, the absence of decoration and the lack of defined style in most of the pieces make it difficult to classify them, unless they have marks or inscriptions that provide information about their center of origin or their dating. A baptismal shell in a private collection is dated 1761; while the one at the Franz Mayer Museum is marked in Mexico by Mariano de la Torre between 1819 and 1823. Other pieces have stamps from Guanajuato and Yucatan.
The elongated form, narrowed in the neck that precedes the hinge and the rolled and tubular handle coincides, in this case, with the piece of the church of Cumbres Mayores (Huelva) from 1715-1717, sent from Antequera de Oaxaca by Captain Juan Gomez Marquez in the fleet of 1718 (3). With the logical reservations, we can consider the same region of origin, from which other pieces of the Puebla collection also come, and an approximate chronology around the first quarter of the 18th century for the copy of the Amparo Museum.
1. According to G. Rodriguez, the model of this typology is possibly of Sevillian origin.
2. Cfr. C. Esteras, «Platería virreinal novohispana…», ob. cit., pp. 222-223, nº 48, pp. 266-267, nº 70, y pp. 284-285, nº 79; La platería del Museo Franz Mayer…, ob. cit., pp. 304-305, nº 130; y Marcas de platería hispanoamericana. Siglos XVI-XX, Madrid, 1992, p. 34, nº 85; L. S. Iglesias Rouco, Platería Hispanoamericana en Burgos, Burgos, 1991, p. 112; La Platería Mexicana, ob. cit., p. 45, nº 93 y 94, p. 46, nº 96 y 97, y p. 97, nº 199, 200, 201 y 202; y Platería Novohispana…, ob. cit., p. 62, OR/031, p. 101, OR/091, y p. 108, OR/105.
3. Cfr. J. Palomero Páramo, ob. cit., pp. 68-69, nº 8
