Saltcellar of Francis I;

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Title	Saltcellar of Francis I;
Title Alternative	Salt cellar of Francis I;
File Name	civ metadata CID; Civ Archive 027 correct picture; 98401230.jpg
Copyright Status/Owner	Public Domain, reviewed CJ 9/25/06
Publisher Original	Harcourt and Brace
Rights (Patron Usage Instructions)	http://www.lib.byu.edu/genericnote_copyright.html
Course	HUM 201
Lecture Number	41
Professor	Green, Jon D., 1940-
Description	When King Francis I conquered Milan in 1499, he brought some leading Italian artists to his court in Fontainebleau, including Benvenuto Cellini, a Florentine goldsmith and sculptor trained in the mannerist style. Cellini worked in Fontainebleau from 1540-1545, during which time Francis I commissioned many works from him. This saltcellar was one of the few works to survive from these commissions, although it disappeared from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 2003 and has not been seen since. Despite the lack of surviving examples, scholars agree that Cellini played a large share in the development of French sculpture. This saltcellar shows the dazzling technical skill and exquisite craftsmanship for which Cellini was known. Cellini himself commented on the success with which he rendered this work in his autobiography, noting that when he first showed this piece to Francis I, the king “uttered a loud cry of astonishment, and could not satiate his eyes with gazing at it.” The saltcellar was meant to be a dinner table conversation piece. Neptune protects the salt, which is in a boat-shaped container, since salt comes from the sea, while a personification of Earth watches over the small ionic temple containing land-grown pepper. On the base of the saltcellar Cellini sculpted allegorical figures representing the four times of day (Night, Day, Twilight, and Dawn) and four chief winds. Ultimately, this playful allegorical work allowed Cellini an opportunity to exhibit his artistic and technical virtuosity.
Creator	Cellini, Benvenuto, 1500-1571
Country	France
Geographic Region	Europe
Type	Slide
Platform	Cross-Platform
File Size	254.824 KB
Genre	Sculpture
Category	Art
Keywords	Cellini, Benvenuto; Saltcellar of Francis I; Sixteenth-century French art; mannerism;
Time Period	Mannerist Period
Date Range	1539: 1543
Historical Date	ca. 1543
Date Original	C. 1543 AD
Date Digital	2005-03-29
Metadata Entry Date	2009-08-11
Quality	High
Contributors	Brigham Young University
Copyright Expiration Date	10/1/2005
Edition	Electronic reproduction;
Format	JPEG
Owning Institution	Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Publisher Digital	Brigham Young University
Source	Lawrence Cunningham & John Reich, Culture and values: a survey of the Western humanities, 4th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998); H.W. Janson and Anthony F. Janson, A Basic History of Western Art, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., 2006), 352. Anthony Blunt, Art and Architecture in France, 1500-1700, 5th ed. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 77; Benvenuto Cellini, The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, transl. John Addington Symonds (New York: Heritage Press, 1558), 197-198.
Use Time	0:00:00

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