Doge Francesco Dandolo receiving the Vexillum from Saint Mark

Label

Early modern rooms dedicated to intellectual pursuits, such as libraries, housed many small-scale functional sculptures that contributed to a collector’s study. While inkwells, candlesticks, and sandboxes were themselves useful for scholarly activities, these objects’ all’anticaimagery and classically coded materials, like bronze, also made them prestigious. They testified to the owner’s education and good taste. Mass-produced objects like the two octagonal pedestals with Bacchic imagery could be altered to suit various uses, such as supporting small sculptures or holding the sand used to dry ink. The form, quality, and adornment of common objects like inkwells shifted in relation to expense. The small inkwell in this case replicates the ornament of grander, more finely finished examples; sirens form supportive feet and satyrs’ masks and vegetation add decoration. The rough quality of the cast, the lower-quality metal alloy, and the lack of finishing, however, all indicate the relative affordability of this inkwell.

From the 2024 exhibition Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art, and Ashley B. Offill, Curator of Collections

Provenance

Wallace D. Bradway, New Haven, Connecticut, before 2008; given to present collection, 2022.

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