SNAKES ON YOUR PLATE
Last year, in the Gustave Moreau museum in Paris, it was a pleasant surprise for me to discover a very special piece of crockery in addition to the paintings that were the prime reason for my visit. The plate, a collector’s item, was suspended in an unobtrusive place in a tiny room not designed to show the artistic production of the painter but to convey an impression of his living conditions. The richly coloured oval shaped plate displayed a relief showing several fish lying near two snakes. One snake is prominently positioned in the centre of the plate, while the other decorates its rim. The plate was hung in a location that was difficult to photograph. No matter how I positioned myself I could not get a straight view of it through the lens of the camera. So I had to satisfy myself with the photograph shown here (photo 1).
Recently I visited the castle Chenonceau in the Loire region in France and lo and behold, besides all the noble pomp and circumstance exhibited there, I happened upon plates with a similar depiction and executed in a design comparable to the one in the Musée Gustave Moreau (photo 2). This time, however, the snake plays a supporting role only, since the principal meal of fish or crayfish lies invitingly displayed in the centre of the dish while the snake, curled up along the rim of the plate, watches the culinary tableau with interest.
From the explanation next to the second plate I learned that it dates from the third quarter of the nineteenth century, and is inspired by the work of the famous French potter Bernard Palissy (1510-1590). A beautiful proof of his competence can be found – besides on the Internet – on page 95 of Snake Charm, Marilyn Nissenson and Susan Jonas’s imposing book, as well as on page 188 in the catalogue of an exhibition on snakes and dragons which took place from October 11th 2007 to January 27th 2008 in Germany’s national museum of natural history (Joger & Luckhardt, 2007). The plate at the Musée Gustave Moreau, even if not original, certainly pays homage to Palissy’s expertise.
At first I was surprised by the emphatic presence on one and the same plate of a snake amidst all other edible aquatic fauna. I could not imagine snakes on the menu anywhere in Europe, no matter how nicely served – and certainly not in the noble or anyhow richer milieus which in those days would have been the principle environment of these ceramic objets d’art. Anywhere else in the world people will probably not be averse to a snake on one’s plate, but I never heard of it within our own domain. It soon dawned on me, however, that the search for a culinary explanation of the bizarre combination of snakes and fishes does not hold water and that a rather different approach is necessary.
Ce
ramic works of arts like those pictured here are called bassins rustiques ('pastoral basins'). It is as if the observer looks through the water surface at the life below. In this specific situation it is, however, remarkable that the snakes lie submerged quite coolly and do not seem to hunt at all! Such true-to-nature as well as highly detailed ceramic replica’s of life attest to the capacity of painstaking observation as well as to the immense skill of the artist. Tableau’s as pictured here were chosen by the artist because they fulfilled the need of 16th and 17th century students of nature as well as nature lovers, for information about the things of nature and the nature of things. The great voyages of discovery of the 15th century and later had had the effect of bringing the Europeans in contact with the until then hidden treasures of the fauna and flora of other continents. For those interested in nature these up to then unfamiliar animals, plants, etcetera, created an extraordinary supplement to their education.
Those who could afford the luxury, collected their items of vague but intriguing origin in specially designed cabinets, the so-called knick-knacks. I imagine a bassin rustique with an exhibition of the world of nature (there are also plates with other, for instance mythological, representations) to be a highly desired part of such a collection of curiosities. With their ceramic expertise Palissy and his epigones anyhow met these desires.
Translation: A.A. Verveen.
English corrections: Maureen Bleeker-Turner.
References
Joger, U. & Jochen Luckhardt (Hrsg.), Schlangen und Drachen. Kunst und Natur. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 2007.
Nissenson, M. & Susan Jones, Snake charm. New York, 1995.
First published in Litteratura Serpentium 31, 69-72.