18th century
Alms Dish
Brass, diameter 42 cm
The alms dish, properly called "alms plate", is a container usually decorated in the shape of a large basin or plate for collecting offerings for the Church; generally in metal such as bronze, brass, silver and gold. Constant is the presence of central phytomorphic or whirl decorations or with subjects taken from the bible, it can also present in the center a support to fix an iconographic element (a statuette) or even a candle holder or compartments for the subdivision of alms.
The alms dish is a handcrafted object present and documented since the Middle Ages throughout Southern Europe from the second half of the 15th century, until the mid-18th century and beyond; initially produced in Flanders (Mechelen/Malines area) and Germany (Nuremberg area) and gradually then of expanded regional production.
It is so called because in the churches of Germany in the early fifteenth century (about 60 years before Martin Luther) during the masses it was used to collect offerings in brass plates, basins and bowls, called for this reason alms. In the past it was handled only by the sacristan, passing among the faithful during religious services in the church and was used for that purpose until the late nineteenth century; then replaced by alms in fabric with a slit opening, most likely for reasons of privacy.
The artisan workshops of Nuremberg began to build them in quantity and with increasingly valuable specimens, especially after, from the mid-fifteenth century, throughout Europe spread among individuals the fashion of hanging various types and workmanship at home. These plates often appear in a series of standardized executions due to a massive production of proto-industrial type spread especially in areas of Catholic influence (South Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Flanders).
In Italy the alms dish is also used on Good Friday to rest the nails and the crown of thorns during the ceremony of the deposition of Christ from the cross while in Sardinia it is used in a particular way, it becomes periodically a musical instrument used to accompany the Sardinian dance.
The alms dish under consideration, in brass, has a series of concentric decorative fields with plant motifs and in the center a dextrorotatory whirl, a decoration that can be found in many examples, including that painted in the Apparition of Gregory the Great to Santa Fina by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the collegiate church of San Giminiano.
The whirl motif is used with reference to life and the sun and are almost always dextrorotatory: formed by stylized leaves with central rib from which depart the "petals" of a flower from the central pin. This Christian symbol has very ancient roots and is linked to the dextrorotatory swastika which evokes the sacred tantric symbol of the auspicious shakti.
The object is in good condition
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