This silver ewer and basin, now in the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

in London, was originally part of a set of six. They were made in 1621 to 1622 and are decorated with episodes from the life of Giovanni Grimaldi, who was a member of one of the most important aristocratic families in 17th century

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

. The ewer depicts an event in the Wars in Lombardy, the battle of the

River Po The Po ( , ) is the longest river in Italy. It flows eastward across northern Italy, starting from the Cottian Alps. The river's length is , or if the Maira, a right bank tributary, is included. The headwaters of the Po are formed by a spring ...

in 1431, at which Giovanni commanded the Milanese fleet against the Venetians. Also prominent on the set are the arms of the Lomellini, another highly influential Genoese family whose wealth was partly founded on trade in coral. There is no

documentary evidence Documentary evidence is any evidence that is, or can be, introduced at a trial in the form of documents, as distinguished from oral testimony. Documentary evidence is most widely understood to refer to writings on paper (such as an invoice, a co ...

for the commission but the two dynasties shared trading interests and were related by marriage. It may be that the pieces were made for the

House of Grimaldi The House of Grimaldi is the Dynasty, reigning house of the Monaco, Principality of Monaco. The house was founded in 1160 by Grimaldo Canella in Genoa and became the ruling house of Monaco when François Grimaldi, Francesco Grimaldi captured Mo ...

but later passed on the Lomellini, perhaps as a wedding gift or to mark a business transaction. Objects such as these were deliberately designed to be admired rather than used. The sculptural decoration of the set, in particular with writing handle and shell lip of the ewer, reflects the taste for marine and grotesque ornament that was fashionable in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It has been suggested that the

goldsmith A goldsmith is a Metalworking, metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Modern goldsmiths mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, they have also made cutlery, silverware, platter (dishware), plat ...

may have used drawings by Lavazzo Tavarone (1556–1641), who worked on the

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

es in the Palazzo Grimaldi. Both pieces bear the mark of Genoa but were probably the work of a Flemish goldsmith, Giovanni Aelbosca Belga. It was not unusual for Flemish goldsmiths to be working in Genoa at this time as a large colony of Flemish artists also resided there in the early 17th century.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lomellini Ewer And Basin Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum Silver objects