Design for Silver Plate Decorated with Crabs 1500 - 1583

Erasmus Hornick, a goldsmith and printmaker, made this design for a silver plate with pen and watercolor sometime in the 16th century. The grotesque crabs, ribbons, and foliate scrolls are emblematic of the Northern Mannerist style that became popular in Europe at this time. Mannerism, of course, was the style of the elite, and pieces like this would have been commissioned by aristocratic families. It is likely Hornick, who worked in Augsburg, Germany, created this design as part of a larger pattern book for other craftsmen and wealthy patrons. The inclusion of a blank escutcheon at the center of the plate suggests that the design was intended to be customized with a family's coat-of-arms, reinforcing their status through conspicuous consumption. But the image also shows the growing importance of specialized design and printmaking as part of the commercialized art world of the period. To understand this image better, one could research similar pattern books and examine inventories of wealthy households in 16th-century Augsburg. With such research, the social world embedded in these strange yet beautiful designs begins to emerge.