GUATEMALA (ANTIGUA), 18TH CENTURY

Details

A FINE SPANISH COLONIAL SILVER BEZOAR BOWL
GUATEMALA (ANTIGUA), 18TH CENTURY
Circular, with two stylized handles, on flaring circular foot, the sides finely embossed with alternating flutes and flat-chased with flowers, the interior flat-chased with a flowerhead in the center and with stylized leaf motifs inside the rim, the center set with a large bezoar stone in a silver foliate mount on threaded stem, the base with engraved inscription M.a del Rosario Asturias y Wading; marked under base with town mark (Esteras 274) and crown tax mark
6 in. (15.2 cm.) wide over handles; 9 oz. 10 dwt. (296 gr.) weighable silver

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Lot Essay

Another Guatemalan silver bezoar bowl, marked by Miguel Guerra, Guatemala City, 1790, is illustrated in Orfebrería Hispanoamericana, Siglos XVI-XIX, Madrid, 1986, pp. 93-94. An example in gold, from the South American colonies, was discovered in the wreck of Nuestra Señora de Atocha, sunk in 1622, and is now in the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum (see Corey Malcolm, “Bezoar Stones,” in The Navigator: Newsletter of the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society, vol. 13, no. 6, June 1998).

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