Every month we present a special object from the Aronson Antiquairs’ collection. This month we would like to show you this blue and white biconical salt vessel on a square base.

For thousands of years, salt has been an indispensable commodity. Essential for preserving and flavoring food, it once held such universal value that it functioned as an international medium of exchange. In antiquity, Roman soldiers were famously paid in salt, giving rise to the Latin salarium, the origin of the modern word “salary.” Salt was also among the earliest commodities to be taxed, with records of salt taxation in China dating back as far as 2000 BC. Given its economic and cultural importance, it is hardly surprising that salt occupied a prominent place on medieval and Renaissance dining tables.

Salt cellars, often referred to simply as “salts”, were designed to contain this precious substance, with the earliest known examples already in use in classical Rome. Beyond their practical function, salts served as powerful social indicators. The quality of salt presented by a host reflected both wealth and status, while a guest’s position at the table could be judged by their proximity to the salt cellar: to sit “above the salt” was a mark of distinction. The most luxurious salts were fashioned from precious metals, while others were made from porcelain, earthenware, or pewter.

By the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the symbolic significance of salt gradually diminished, and salt cellars became correspondingly smaller. The present Delft salt cellar, however, belongs to an earlier tradition. Its square form and notable height point to a period when salt still held considerable ceremonial importance. Archival sources confirm that square salts were produced in Delft from at least 1667 onwards, yet very few examples of this particular model have survived. As such, this piece offers a rare and evocative glimpse into the rituals and hierarchies of the seventeenth-century table.

D2512
Blue and White Square Salt Cellar
Delft, circa 1670

Biconical vessel on a square base with four round feet in each corner, continuous decoration with on each side a figure in a various landscape, at the top, a square basin with a cherry motif surrounded by a band of scroll work.

DIMENSIONS
Height: 12 cm. (4.7 in.)

PROVENANCE
German Private Collection, Hessen