Silver Salt Cellars Part I

Discussion on early salt cellars. The standing salt. The hour-glass form. The bell-shaped salt. The seventeenth century octagonal and circular types. The eighteenth century trencher salts. Tripod salts. The open work style with glass liner. The evolution of form in the salt cellar of the later periods.

In the old days when costume determined the gentle from the simple, when demarcations of rank were definitely pronounced, when men wore feathers in their hats and swords at their sides, when retainers and menials sat at the same board with their lord and lady, the customs of the table were not our customs. It was only in Elizabeth’s day, when dinner was served at a long table, that the oaken floor replaced rushes. The diners threw bones to the dogs, and although sweet sounds came from the musician’s gallery, the scene one may recall is one rather of barbaric splendor than of luxurious refinement. To him who loves to quicken the dry bones of collecting into something pulsating with life, the salt cellar provides a delight which is not easily equaled. It was an honoured guest at every feast. It was the social thermometer which marked the exact degree of rank of the sitters. Persons of distinction sat above the salt, and between it and the head of the table. Those who sat below the salt were dependents and inferior guests.

If only these salt cellars reproduced as illustrations could give tongue to the secrets they caught in whisper from the upper end of the table before the withdrawing chamber, prototype of our modern drawing-room, became a necessity! If walls had ears, and if the salt cellars of Tudor England or of the stormy days of the Stuarts could have been fitted with American gramophone wax cylinders, the by-ways of secret history would be less tangled to the historian.

English Sterling Salt Cellar from the Gothic Period, circa 1500. Hour-glass form. 9 1/4 inches tall. From a drawing by Del la Motte.

Had this been the case, modern millionaires would have been in competition with one another to secure precious records, as it is only a rich man who can afford to gather together a representative collection of old salt cellars. But for all that, the collector with small means, who is less ambitious, may obtain specimens that are of exceptional interest, and in his quest he may, even in these days when collectors scour Europe, come across an example which may be antique.

As may be imagined, these “salts” are very varied in character. They may be of silver, of earthenware, or of ivory. They may be of simple form with little to distinguish them artistically, or, on the other hand, of such intricate design and rare workmanship as to make them superb examples of the art of the jeweller or silversmith.

Take, for instance, the salt cellar sold at Christie’s in 1902 for 3,000 Pounds Sterling. [Editor’s note: I was quite astounded when calculating the equivalent price in today’s dollars. Using the exchange rate of the time of $4.70 per Pound Sterling and adjusting for inflation using the U.S. Consumer Price Index for the past 107 years this would be the equivalent of paying approximately $380,000 today!] It was only 7 5/8 inches in height. It is silver-gilt, bearing the London hall-mark for 1577, and the maker’s mark, a hooded falcon, probably the work of Thomas Bampton, of the “Falcon.” The receptacle for the salt is of rock crystal, and the base stands upon claw feet, which are of crystal. The cover is square, having a circular dome top, above which stands a delicately modeled figure of a cherub as an apex.

A standing salt of the time of James I, with the London hall-mark for 1613, was sold at Christie’s in 1903 for 1,150 Pounds Sterling. The height of this is 11 3/8 inches, and beyond its special value on account of its age and rarity, its form is not possessed of greater elegance than many a lowly pepper caster whose presence it would scorn on the same board.

Silver Salt Cellars Part II, Continued

Tagged as: English, salt cellars, Silver, sterling