Description:
Terracotta Pilgrim Flask 1800, biconvex in shape with a rounded outer side and a flat inner side, without a base, and with two side handles for a cord (one of which has a partial break). The terracotta is glazed in a mottled greenish-ivory color with a more intense green. Central Italy 1800.
These small terracotta flasks were specifically designed to hold water or other liquids needed for pilgrims to quench their thirst during their travels. They were relatively small in size, lenticular in shape, and could be attached to the belt or carried over the shoulder using a cord that was passed around the flask through four handles or perforated grips located on the sides.
Therefore, the essential tool for the traveler was soon decorated and enhanced with new shapes, both in the plastic modeling of the flask and in its typology, leading to peculiar forms such as flasks hollowed out in the center which, being equipped with a base, suggest a decorative rather than functional purpose.
Decoration also evolved from primitive graffiti with geometric or floral motifs to enameled coloring or pictorial decoration according to the usual models of the period, or, in more popular examples, abstract in nature, as in the case of flasks with abstract, almost random decoration, in which we like to imagine that the decorator simply had leftover colors to use up.
Height: 19 cm - Width: 15.5 cm - Depth: 6.2 cm
art. A1061h
