Marriage Beaker
Unknown Artist
late 1400s
Medium
opaque glass (milk glass or lattimo), enameled
Dimensions
{"overall":{"height":0.102,"width":0.074}}
Classification
Glass
Department
Decorative Art and Design
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Accession Number
1955.70
About this artwork
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 ...