Existing comment:
Heart-shaped flask
16th C, mounts ca. 1580
Gujarat (?), with Iberian mounts
A 1596 inventory of Archduke Ferdinand II's Kunstkammer lists this tortoiseshell flask as "an Indian flask . . . of cast glass or ceramic." The writer's uncertainty about its material underscores the blurring of art and nature so prized in Kunstkammer objects. It also speaks to tortoiseshell's rarity in Europe. Indian-made tortoiseshell pieces were brought back to Europe to be displayed as marvelous "exotica" as early as 1540. |