The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of September 26, 2023

Marriage Beaker

late 1400s

Italy, Venice, late 15th century

Opaque glass (milk glass or lattimo), enameled

Overall: 10.2 x 7.4 cm (4 x 2 15/16 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1955.70

Location

118 Italian Renaissance

Description

By the mid-1400s the word lattimo had come to mean glass made milk-like by the addition of opacifying materials, such as an oxide of tin. It was imitative of Chinese porcelain. Only fourteen surviving pieces of lattimo vessels are recorded. These beakers may have been intended as betrothal or wedding gifts. This one is enameled with idealized portrait heads of a young man and woman. Such portrait heads of young women were also a feature of Italian Maiolica, especially those at Deruta (see "love dishes" in Gallery 219).

Provenance
Baron Maurice de Rothschild [1881-1957], Chateau de Pregny.
Citations
Francis, Henry S. Venetian Tradition: Catalogue of the Exhibition. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1956. Mentioned: p. 89 library.clevelandart.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 228 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 88 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 88 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 101 archive.org
Mack, Rosamond E. Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300-1600. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Mentioned & reproduced: pp. 120-1, fig. 126 library.clevelandart.org
Lindow, James. The Renaissance Palace in Florence: Magnificence and Splendour in Fifteenth-Century Italy. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Mentioned & reproduced: p. 159, fig. 38 library.clevelandart.org
Exhibition history

No existing exhibition history

Mille Anni di Arte del Vetro a Venezia (A Thousand Years of Glass Art in Venice). Palazzo Ducale, Venice, Italy, Venice, Italy (July 24-December 8, 1982).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1955.70