more dessert trenchers

[ppfuf]

Last year, when I was wishing for pictures of the dessert trenchers in The Morgan Library & Museum, GM and I happened to be hosting one of the dance teachers out for Historical Dance Week. She stayed with us again this year, and brought me a whole CD of pictures! YAY! Apparently, the Morgan is understandably fussy about who they let view their precious collection, and I don't think I would ever have gotten in. Of course, I can't publish the pictures anywhere, but I can use them as visual aids if I get off my butt and teach a class at next collegium.

The trenchers themselves are somewhat different from their closest relatives, the British Museum sets  1888,1110.45 (CWC) and 1896,0807.8 (Griffith). The overriding design feature of the set is gold cornucopias, overflowing with various fruits and flowers. The flowers and fruits are fairly natural looking. The edges are intensively free hand decorated with a nearly-symmetrical stylized border I don't know how to describe. On a gilt border, thin black lines in a flower hearts and diamonds design has been highlighted with many small circles, diamonds, quatrefoils, and leaves filled with bright colors. Perhaps I'll corner some poor art major at the next event and see if there's a known vocabulary for it.
ETA: Wow, there's a (crappy) picture of one of the Morgan trenchers on the internet! Look here (or if that doesn't work scroll down on this page. It's the acorn and strawberry flower trencher, with a verse of: Long life you look for because you would bury the wife you now have, of whom you are weary. But I tell you plain, some sprite is your debtor; no worse shall she have nor yet you a better.

ETA2: Both those links are broken, so put "trencher" into the search box at the top of the page. You should get four pictures from the Morgan, the British Musueum (2), and the Met.

Comments

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

The art major said "grotesque" would be a fine word to use.

Wikipedia: "In art, grotesques are ornamental arrangements of arabesques with interlaced garlands and small and fantastic human and animal figures, usually set out in a symmetrical pattern around some form of architectural framework, though this may be very flimsy."