Dish

Oval, elaborately embossed and chased in high relief with an oval scene depicting Hercules drawing his bow on the centaur Nessus, who carries away his wife Deianira, enclosed by a broad border pierced and chased with large flowers amid foliate scrolls. This dish is an example of highly decorated silver popular in London during the Restoration period. Such spectacular objects were made solely for display, to demonstrate the wealth and prestige of the owner. Most were the work of immigrant craftsmen from continental Europe, and this example bears the mark of the German-born goldsmith Jacob Bodendeich. The central scene, illustrating a passage in Ovid's "Metamorphoses," is derived from a frequently republished mid-sixteenth-century engraving by Bernard Solomon. Bodendeich, who worked in the tradition of bold floral and auricular chasing and molding, evidently ran a sizeable workshop. The differences in handling of various parts of this dish suggest that more than one goldsmith contributed to its realization.