To Serve and Project: The Palissy Sauce Boat, 1550-1600

Sauceboat
French, 1550-1600
Bernard Palissy
The Victoria & Albert Museum

I wouldn't want to put gravy in this. It’s too pretty.  That, and there are naked people in it, and gravy and nudity don't mix for me.  Well, and it's also lead-glazed.

Still...

This exceptional earthenware sauceboat features figures of Bacchus and Ceres.  It’s quite French, obviously, and dates to the Sixteenth Century.  You see, by the Sixteenth Century, the rest of Europe had already noticed that the French had the art of dining well under control and they looked to France to determine the latest trends in elegant and sophisticated foods and food-related items.

This is the work of French artist Bernard Palissy (1510-1590) who was celebrated for his novel and attractive vessels.  Palissy successfully combined design elements of metalwork and ceramics into items for every aspect of fine dining.  This sauceboat is an excellent example of his work—bright polychrome figures and beautiful curving planes. 

Sophisticated dining implements, such as this, would have been displayed proudly when not in use at grand dinners and other special occasions. Palissy was quite clever with the design, knowing that dinner guests would have been impressed and amused as the sauce drained away to reveal the figures beneath.

A similar sauceboat by Palissy, decorated with a bathing nymph inside, can be found in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Paris.

And, as an added bonus, it looks a bit like a seven-toed foot.