A pair of silver standing reflective bouquets in the form of a one-sided flowery vase, embossed in silver plating and set on a board. The lower vase takes on the bulbous form of an inverted pear and a convex surface; insofar as the bouquets are cut on a plate with an oval contour with acanthus branches above and below which form crowned paths, the upper one in the form of a trifoliate headpiece with a fleur de lis silhouette, and the lower one with a pair of spears. Roses, daisies and wreaths of flowers and dead leaves that cascade down are arranged in a symmetric array around a smooth, oblong mirror. Surrounded by a half-round molding and trimmed by a crown of pointed leaves, it is outlined by another outer battened molding as a smooth cord that falls from the tie of the upper crest.
For decorative effect, the bouquets, vases or fleurons appear from the start of the new Spanish baroque in liturgic furniture and the adornment of the altar as a complement to facades, lecterns, large candlesticks, sacred works and altar crosses. In this regard, in 1686 Cannon Diego de Victoria Salazar delivered to the liturgic inventory of the Puebla cathedral, in fulfillment of the will of the treasurer Silverio de Pineda, six silver jugs that weighed 239 marks, and other such bouquets weighing 135 marks, whose works had imported 2927 and 2427 pesos respectively.[1] The evidence of exuberance, fantasy and originality that these types of ornamental elements attained within this style are attested by the six sets confiscated from the Espiritu Santo Jesuit school that would be ed in 1782.[2] From four to two jugs with their handles and hammered silver flowers finished with iris, lilies, birds and even polychrome silver butterflies.
The greatest number of preserved specimens dates, however, from the transition period to neo-classicism or the fullness of the style, such as the two sets in the possession of the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City.[3]The pair from the Amparo Museum would likewise have to be included in that same stage of affirmation of classicist aesthetics in the final years of the eighteenth century, as denoted by the lanceolate form of the bouquet, the sturdy axial symmetry based on garlands, roses and styled acanthus leaves, and the containment of the embellishment that, far from cluttering the baroque examples, ensures that the spaces at the bottoms are free to highlight the adornment displayed. Nonetheless, it seems like an adaptation to the classicist language of the nineteenth century of baroque models of the previous century. This is determined, for example, by comparing it with another pair of bouquets from the eighteenth century in a private Mexican collection, both with the same type of smooth vase without handles and an elliptical central mirror with edges lined with rods.[4] Given its features and in spite of the absence of standard markings - as is customary in non-capital centers - we think they could have been carved with a great figure as the focal point, and a strong tradition such as Oaxaca, the area this set is from, as with other pieces from the Amparo Museum collection.
[1]. Pérez Morera, 2010: p. 277; and AA, Inventory book, 1656, f. 38.
[2]. AA, Book-memoir of the gold and silver jewels belonging to the three schools of the Espiritu Santo, San Ildefonso and San Francisco Javier, delivered by order of the viceroy to the bishop of Puebla, 1782, not dated.
[3]. Cf. Esteras Martín, 1992: pg. 226-227, no. 79, and 289-290, no. 119.
[4]. AA VV, 1994: pg. 78, no. 167.
Sources:
Esteras Martín, Cristina, La platería del Museo Franz Mayer (Silver work of the Franz Mayer Museum). Chosen works. Centuries XVI-XIX, Mexico City, Franz Mayer Museum, 1992.
Pérez Morera, Jesús, “El arte de la platería en Puebla de los Ángeles. Centuries XVII-XVIII” (The Art of Silver work in Puebla de Los Angeles in the 17th and 18th Centuries), in Ophir in the Indies. Studies on American silver. XVI-XIX Centuries, Leon, España, Universidad de Leon, 2010.
Mexican Silver work. Mexico, INAH, 1994.
