Large vase in the shape of a dragon or "caquesseitão"
1590 - 1620.Room 079B
A vessel formed by various pieces of rock crystal joined together by ten enamelled gold mounts. It represents a fantastical animal with short membranous wings, a prolonged neck and an elongated body, carved in a single piece. It has feathers or scales, two small breasts, a row of spikes along the back, and a scaly curling tail. Standing on large bird’s feet, it has a small horn on its head, and its tongue protrudes from its open jaws, forming a kind of projecting bowl. The interior is reached through an upper oval aperture with a lid decorated by a gold mount with three parallel bands, apparently made to conceal a crack.
Called a “dragon” in the old inventories, this creature corresponds to the image of an animal, the caquesseitão, supposedly found in Sumatra, according to the accounts of Portuguese travellers. Hollowing out the interior involved a considerable technical effort, justifiable only if it was intended to be used as a container. However, the design of the body does not seem functional for pouring water or wine, while the prolongation of the jaws into a kind of spout recalls the shape of oil lamps, suggesting that it might be some kind of lighting apparatus. If it were possible to use it as a lamp or perfume burner, it would come to life and acquire a new conceptual sense. There are examples of monstrous masks with human faces used during the Renaissance as doors or windows. This practice can also be seen in other formats, in gardens like those of Bomarzo or Frascati and on façades like that of the Palazzo Zuccari, and even used as fireplaces.
The design of the mounts on the neck and tail is quite similar to those on vessels O90 and O91 at the Prado. Another similar piece in the form of a fantastical animal, originating in the collection of Cardinal Mazarino and attributed with reservations to the Sarachi workshop, is preserved at the Musée du Louvre, MR 324. However, its body is shorter, it has no wings, and it is decorated with less care. The mount on the lid is later and very different, as it corresponds to a style that appears in the repertories of models for goldsmiths, with clusters of pointed leaves accompanied by rows of seeds, all delimited by lines tooled into the metal and afterwards filled with enamel. The designs of Balthasar Lemercier, published in Paris in 1626, belong to this tendency, whose rapid spread can be appreciated in certain silver pieces like the set of royal insignias made for the funeral of Queen Christina of Holstein-Gottorp, the wife of Gustav Adolf of Sweden, upon her death in 1625. Attributed to Gillis Coyet the Younger, they are preserved at the Royal Armoury in Stockholm. There is another Vessel in the form of a dragon or caquesseitão in the Dauphin’s Treasure, O111, attributed to the Miseroni workshop.
Original state : Juan Laurent y Minier, “Drageoir, en forme d’oiseau chimérique, en cristal de roche taillé et gravé, montures d’or et émail, XVIe siècle, règne de Henri II”, c. 1879. Museo del Prado, HF0835/50.
