Bull's-Head Bottle for Scented Oil, Mycenaean/Greek, B.C. Terracotta, 1 5/8 x 3 5/16 x 3 1/4 in.

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1 What Is It? Look at the following objects and without knowing the facts about them, imagine the answers for the following questions. Write your answers in complete sentences supporting your ideas with specific examples. 1.Who was it made for? Give an example from the artwork as to why you think that. 2.What is it made of? Give an example from the artwork as to why you think that. 3.Where it is from? Give an example from the artwork as to why you think that. 4.When was it made? Give an example from the artwork as to why you think that. 5.Why was it made? Give an example from the artwork as to why you think that. 6.How big is it? Give an example from the artwork as to why you think that. *Give specific examples about the object proving what you think. *Example: *It is shiny so I think it is made of glass.* *I think it is made of glass because it is shiny.*

2 What Is It?

3 Bull's-Head Bottle for Scented Oil, Mycenaean/Greek, B.C. Terracotta, 1 5/8 x 3 5/16 x 3 1/4 in. Now broken, this aryballos originally had a narrow spouted mouth and a handle that ran from the body to the mouth. An aryballos would have been used to hold perfumed oil, and the narrow mouth was designed to conserve this precious commodity. Scholars use the term Mycenaean to describe the culture that flourished in Greece in the period from about 1500 to 1200 B.C. Originating on the mainland of Greece, Mycenaean culture spread by means of trade and colonization over much of the Mediterranean during the course of centuries.

4 What Is It?

5 Komasts Cup, Painter of Copenhagen 103, Greek, Athens, about B.C., Terracotta, 3 13/16 x 7 7/8 in. Six komasts or revelers dance around the sides of this Athenian black-figure cup. Participants in the singing and dancing after a symposion or drinking party. Komasts have a distinctive vigorous dance. They stand on one leg, with one arm forward and one arm back, and they often hold drinking horns or cups while dancing. Although some dancers wore short padded tunics, most were naked, as these are. Vase-painters portrayed komasts on several types of vessels in the early 500s B.C., but appeared so frequently on this form of cup it is called a komast cup. In addition to the dancers, they all have a floral design under the handles, a simple pattern-- usually rosettes--on the lip, a zone of rays above the foot, and a black interior. Komast cups were popular and widely exported from about 580 to 560 B.C.

6 What Is It?

7 Wash Basin, Orazio Fontana or his workshop, Italian, Urbino, , Tinglazed earthenware, 2 1/2 x 18 1/4 in. Filled with scented water, basins of this type were offered to dining guests for washing their hands between the courses of a meal. This shallow and splendidly painted example, however, was probably used for display. The central scene tells the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha from Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to the legend, this husband and wife renewed the human race after a devastating flood by casting stones behind them. The stones assumed human form when they struck the earth. Orazio Fontana developed a new type of maiolica decoration inspired by Raphael's frescoed rooms in the Vatican, which in turn were inspired by ancient Roman wall paintings. Known as grotesque motifs, these elegant and fantastic embellishments began to cover increasingly large areas of his work until they dominated the decoration, as on this basin.

8 What Is It?

9 Chinese, Qing Dynasty, Kangxi reign, about , Hard-paste porcelain, underglaze blue decoration, H: 1 ft. 11 1/2 in. Chinese factories sent their porcelain pieces made for export down the to European traders. Parisian dealers bought most of their imported porcelain from the Dutch East Indies Company in Amsterdam, the main European importer of Far Eastern goods for many years. The volume of this trade in porcelain was enormous: in 1752 a ship headed for Europe sank with 223,303 pieces of porcelain on board. In the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans considered porcelain an exotic and rare material that only the upper classes could afford. Many princes and nobles amassed large collections of Chinese and Japanese ceramics, installing them in rooms known as "China cabinets." There, porcelains in arrangements known as garnitures decorated entire walls, with vases, plates, and cups set on brackets or over mantels, in and on tops of cabinets, and along shelves or even the floor. After eagerly purchasing Chinese and Japanese wares for hundreds of years, Germans finally discovered the formula for "true" or hard-paste porcelain in the first decade of the 1700s.

10 What Is It?

11 Pot-pourri Vase, Produced at the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory; painting attributed to Charles-Nicolas Dodin, French, about 1760, Soft paste porcelain, ground colors, polychrome enamel and gilding, H: 1 ft. 2 3/4 in. x W: 1 ft. 1 11/16 in. x D: 6 13/16 in. This vase would have held potpourri used to perfume a room. Eighteenth-century ladies made their own, experimenting with various ingredients and sometimes blending essences for as long as nine years. Vases known as vaisseau à mat (masted ships) were made to be sold with other vases of different shapes to form a garniture. This boat-shaped vase is one of the most famous models introduced by the Sèvres porcelain manufactory; such discerning patrons as Madame de Pompadour and her brother the marquis de Marigny collected the form. Among the largest vessels produced by the factory, these vases were extremely difficult to fire; the multiple piercings in the body weakened the overall structure, and they tended to collapse in the kiln. Consequently, only about twelve were ever produced, ten of which survive today.

12 What Is It?

13 Compound Microscope with Case, French (Paris), about 1751, Microscope: gilt bronze, glass and mirror glass, enamel and shagreen, 18 7/8 x 11 x 8 1/8 in. Case: wood, tooled leather, brass, velvet, and silver, and lace 26 x 13 3/4 x 10 5/8 in. Luxurious microscopes like this were made for wealthy Europeans, who maintained collections of natural specimens in the manner of Renaissance Wunderkabinette (cabinets of wonder). This compound microscope possesses a micrometric stage and an ocular micrometer devised to allow measurement of specimens. The microscope--with its interchangeable lens mount and adjustable substage and concave mirror to control illumination--can be focused quickly using a rack-andpinion adjustment or slowly using a vertical screw.

14 What Is It?

15 Middle class, 16th century, people used this kind of glass for drinking beer. A distinctive half-liter glass stein, with clear design. The glass has the green color of forest glass of northern Germany from the Middle Ages. Blobs of glass called prunts decorat the outside probably helped people grip the glass when their fingers were slippery from eating with out knives, forks or spoons which was the practice at the time. Centuries ago it was very difficult to get pure clean drinking water. Tea and coffee were luxuries. The boiling that was a part of the beer making process killed the bacteria in the water that caused sickness. So, beer was actually one of the safest drinks available. It also contained starch, a valuable nutrient at a time when it was hard to get enough in ones daily diet. Children and adults drank beer with their meals, including a low-alcohol version to quench thirst and a warm, sweet and spicy beer for breakfast.

16 What Is It?

17 Coffer, Attributed to André-Charles Boulle, French, about Walnut veneered with brass, pewter, tortoise shell and ebony; gilt bronze. 4x 2 ¼ x 1 ¾ ft. Intended to hold jewels or small precious items, the interiors of this pair of coffers are lined with tortoise shell and brass or pewter, with secret compartments in the base. When lowered on their hinges, the wide gilt bronze straps on the coffer fronts and sides reveal three small drawers for rings. Each coffer also has a lid that opens in two sections. The upper lid reveals a shallow compartment, while the main lid lifts to reveal the interior of the coffer. The coffers are each decorated using techniques known as première partie marquetry, a pattern of brass and pewter on a tortoise shell ground and its reverse, contrepartie. The 1689 inventory of the Grand Dauphin, the oldest son of Louis XIV, lists a jewel coffer of similar form and decoration; according to this inventory, André-Charles Boulle made the coffer. The two stands are of the same date as the coffers, but were originally designed to hold rectangular cabinets. One stand was adapted in the late 1700s or early 1800s to make it the same height as the other.

18 References Getty Historic Enterprises Stein Collectors International s/prunts.html