PROBABLY LATE 15TH OR EARLY 16TH CENTURY

Dishes of this size with broad repoussé rims and deep centres are much rarer than the deep bowls with short rims, and the more standard shallow dishes with their plain or punched rims. These types of Dinant or Nuremberg dishes and bowls were mainly produced as decorative ornament, although it is possible that they may have been utilised as alms dishes (as they are commonly referred to) in some churches at a later date. Comparison can be made with the present dish and that of an example from the Untermyer Collection, which now forms part of the Metropolitan Museum collection - illustrated fig.117, pl.110., Bronzes, Other Metalwork and Sculpture in the Irwin Untermyer Collection, Thames and Hudson.

The following extracts are taken from Hall's Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art .....'The stag or hart, the male deer dusistinguished by its antlers, is the attribute of Julian the Hospitator'. ...'In secular art it is the attribute of Diana, who changed the hunter Acteon into a stag'. ...'Known for its fleetness and sharp senses, which make capture difficult, the stag is an attribute of Hearing, one of the FIVE SENSES and of PRUDENCE'.