Containers for liquids and other substances are among the oldest known artifacts of human ingenuity; in early modern Antwerp, the focus of my research, artists and craftsmen seized on the arrival of new technologies and new materials to increase the diversity of the shapes and kinds of vessels used at table. However, in the research literature these utensils are frequently treated as luxury collectables while their actual use as receptacles is neglected.

This talk explores a different approach to precious vessels, one that takes into account the imaginaries of the substances they were designed to hold and the ways in which their craftsmanship resonated with the dynamically shifting relationships between material environments, cosmologies, and practices of making.

Speaker:

Christine Göttler
Universität Bern