Pair of Saltcellars: The Story of Minos and Scylla, and Allegorical Figures
Little is known of Jean Guibert, who signed this saltcellar and its pair (1916.4.40), with his initials JG. He seems to have enameled a handful of pieces that, like these, are decorated with stories after Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Inside one of these receptacles, he depicts King Minos of Crete on his horse and Scylla—the daughter of his enemy, King Nisus of Megara—after an illustration by Crepin de Passé, published in 1602. The second receptacle depicts Scylla betraying her father by giving Minos, with whom she has fallen in love, Nisus’s magical hair, which provided invincibility. This scene is after a 1557 woodcut attributed to Bernard Salomon. The six sides of each saltcellar are painted with allegorical figures after Étienne Delaune representing Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Temperance, Dialectic, Religion, Justice, Prudence, Poetry, Medicine, and Astronomy.
Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.
J. Pierpont Morgan, London and New York. Duveen. Frick, 1916.
Source: Enamels, Rugs and Silver in The Frick Collection. Volume VIII. New York: The Frick Collection, 1977.
