King D. Fernando II silver dish

While the 19th and 20th century provenance of this dish, described in the past as a salver or presentation dish, is well known, its geographical origin and dating are more difficult to ascertain. In the recently published 1866 handwritten inventory of his silver, ivory and enamel collections, King Fernando II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1816-1885), consort to the Portuguese Queen Maria II (r.1826-1828 and 1834-1853), records it as “a silver salver [heavily decorated] in openwork. Probably a late sixteenth-century Spanish work. Nicely crafted and pleasing piece. Acquired from R. Pinto. - my property”.[1] The king’s private property rather than the Crown’s, the dish is deemed by the king to be Spanish and dating from the sixteenth century. As a mark of ownership it was centrally burin engraved with Fernando II personal cypher, a crowned Gothic script capital “F”, as well as marked to the back with the inventory number “19”.

The dish had been bought from Raimundo José Pinto (1807-1859) a renowned Lisbon based goldsmith who, as a close friend to the monarch, acted often as his artistic agent.[2] Although Fernando II collected a wide range of objects and typologies, it is clear that antique silver, namely 16th century Portuguese, was dear to his heart and took centre stage in his collecting pursuits.[3] While the fruit dish was most certainly acquired before Pinto’s death in 1859, nothing is known of its previous ownership. Raimundo José Pinto, who mainly dealt in antique silver and gold jewellery, had undoubtedly benefited from the suppression of religious orders and from the dissolution of the monasteries that had been decreed in 1834 following the Portuguese Civil War. Additionally, the many Portuguese aristocratic families in dire need of revenue after the war, did also provide a steady, ready to buy supply of desirable objects, many of which would eventually find their way abroad during the troublesome period that ensued.

                Alongside many other of his possessions, the fruit dish was photographed in 1866 by Charles Thurston Thompson (1816-1868) at the King’s Palace of Necessidades home, in Lisbon (fig. 1). Promoted by the South Kensington Museum, founded in 1852 and predecessor of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, these series of photographs are now the most complete and ambitious photographic records of art objects that were undertaken in 19th century Portugal. Collated and published as an album, they provide a thorough visual record of Fernando II private collection, as well as of other Crown silver and gold pieces, which were displayed or safe kept at the Royal Palaces of Necessidades and of Ajuda.[4] A photographic print of the dish can be seen at the above mentioned London Museum (inv. 58563). Its description reads: “Salver, or fruit-tray, perforated with arabesque ornament, honeysuckle-points in the margin; silver. Probably Indian work of the 16th or 17th century. In the Royal Palace of the Necessidades at Lisbon’. Although identified by the king as probably Spanish, this other attribution admits the possibility of it being Indian and dated more broadly as to encompass the seventeenth century. The English labelling was likely prepared beforehand by the museum curator, John Charles Robinson (1824-1913), during his preparatory trip through Portugal.[5] It is curious to note that the king’s engraved cypher is not visible in the photograph, and may have been a later addition. Against the dark background it is however possible to see a large square label applied to the dish’s back. The ring foot, on the contrary, is not identifiable.

                It is also possible that the dish herewith described is the one referred in the king’s post mortem inventory (Inventário Orfanológico) compiled in 1886 which, in the section regarding the King’s Private Office, the Gabinete d’El Rey, records under number 2439 a “filigree salver from the eighteenth century, thirty-eight centimetres in diameter marked with the number two thousand and two hundred and seventy one. Valued at one hundred and eighty thousand reis”.[6] This “salver” was auctioned in 1893 under that same number and recorded in the 1892 published sale catalogue.[7] Its whereabouts unknown until 1949, it was shown in that same year at the Exposição de Ourivesaria Portuguesa, an exhibition of antique and contemporary Portuguese silver promoted at Oporto by the Grémio dos Industriais de Ourivesaria do Norte.[8] From the exhibition catalogue we know that it belonged to Arthur de Sandão, a renowned Decorative Arts expert, collector and director of the Museu Municipal de Viana do Castelo, who published various works on Portuguese faience and furniture. In a photograph (figs. 2-3) from the archives of Fotografia Alvão Lda., an Oporto based photographic studio founded in 1901 by Domingos Alvão, now kept at the Centro Português de Fotografia, it is possible to identify the present dish amongst other, mostly 17th and 18th century, Portuguese silver objects.[9] Until recently the dish belonged to the Ateneu Comercial do Porto alongside other Arthur de Sandão artworks, namely his Portuguese faience collection, and subsequently to an Oporto private collection.

                Careful analysis of the object provides a better understanding of its manufacture techniques. The dish is made from various cast sections soldered together and set on a similarly made openwork ring foot. Considering the rugged appearance, the individual sections may have been sand cast or, albeit more unlikely, cast by lost wax. This may be assessed from the various casting issues detected, such as porosity, defects like fins and burrs, unevenness or excessive silver flow filling the inside of the openwork, etc.

The central rosette is composed of twelve panels following a mirrored design, while the rim is adorned by twelve large leaf-shaped sections soldered to the central rosette, with twelve smaller leaf-shaped motifs alternating with the larger sections. The central rosette and the rim feature a repeating mirrored pattern of scrolling vines, real and imaginary animals and figures (birds, dogs and snails, fruit eating squirrels, dragon heads and fruit eating human figures perched on branches). This “arabesque” design, albeit reminiscent of more exotic patterns, is however European in style and in execution.

The present fruit dish is a significant testimony of the collecting pursuits of one of the finest 19th century art connoisseurs, King Fernando II of Portugal, who amassed an important collection of 16th century Portuguese silver that rivalled that belonging to the Crown.