Double salt 1718 - 1719

Curator: Noël-Charles Langlois' "Double salt", crafted between 1718 and 1719. What are your first impressions? Editor: Regal, almost austere. It's like a tiny silver fortress for flavor. Those feet! I love the almost ferocious paws it stands on. Such a solid presence, it's grounding, in a weird way. Curator: Absolutely, and this echoes through baroque style –grand gestures scaled down to the intimate objects of everyday life. Salt, you see, held immense social value back then. And what kind of signals and values does this vessel for holding this everyday object embody? Editor: Status, definitely. And, let me guess, access to it was controlled somehow, because having something like this must've meant power... Curator: Precisely. Consider that division down the middle—a compartment for the master, and the other? Probably for guests or less privileged family members. Editor: How fascinating that even something as simple as serving salt could embody this social hierarchy! Is that a coat of arms engraved on each lid? Curator: Indeed, symbols of wealth, pedigree and entitlement literally built into this form and these compartments. So very symbolic of control over precious commodities and of a culture based on the separation of the classes. Even in ornamentation. Editor: I can't help but think about how taste, flavor, such immediate bodily experience, became almost politicized. Like saying who gets the sweeter deal in life? How weird! Curator: You see how these objects reveal hidden dimensions of human experience. What started out simply as an interesting box evolves into the theater stage of human values, doesn't it? Editor: Right? It feels weighty, far beyond its material value and size. More like a concentrated shot of power dynamics, a little monument to societal distinctions served up with a sprinkle of salt! Curator: Indeed. Thank you.