Perfume Bottles, Fruit Bowls, and Comfit Boxes: Containers for the Expression of Sensory Luxury Among the 15th Century Castilian Nobility

Abstract

Perfume and comfits were two essential elements of magnificence present in the midst of a highly noble Castilian society during the 15th century, around which were created a number of items in beautiful and unique materials which, along with being richly decorated, served as containers and constituted an essential source to enable us to come close to their sensory dimension of luxury in smell and taste. Although it appears that both elements would have been inevitable in the decoration of major aristocratic homes and dressing rooms, little more is known apart from through biased contemporaneous references that seem to take for granted the sumptuousness with little regard for specific physical detail. However, a clearer picture can be formed by the textile furnishings that were created for display, or the pieces of jewellery and metalwork that were designed to contain such items, which appear in wills, inventories, codicils and chamber records. In these documents are mentioned tools and cosmetics in precious arks, jewellery, crockery, cloths and tablecloths, which sometimes seem to form a whole. Their shapes and forms, materials and purchase prices are mentioned, and occasionally even parts of their production process, or the professionals responsible for their design and production. In the interpretation and contextualisation of this information, it is possible to describe some of the formal characteristics of amber jewellery, flasks, ewers, fruit and sweet confectionary. There is almost no record of preserved relics of table pieces and dressing tables, or anything other of that aesthetic or functional nature. Their importance apart from elaborate aesthetic and economic value lies in their exclusive use. Many of the furnishings were essential objects of the outfit of a noble table, resulting in their being key elements in the protocol of noble ceremony and grandeur. Thus, the use of such items of luxury within a noble household became the distinction of a Lord or Lady.