Wine taster

B.N. Gravillon

1819–38 · Silver · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Also known as a tasse à vin, a tâte-vin, or a tastevin, a wine taster was used by a wine merchant to assess the quality, clarity, and color of wine. The reflective properties, resistance to corrosion, and the fact that it would not taint the wine in any way, made silver the ideal material for a winetaster. Shallow in form, these bowls frequently have a convex bottom. The polished surface, either left smooth or embellished with gadrooning and other decorations, would catch the light and reflect it throughout the wine so that it could be checked for impurities. Holding just a small amount of wine, silver wine tasters are often personalized with initials, names, and dates or coats-of-arms. Here the name F. Laplanche is engraved on the outside rim of the fluted bowl. The grooved loop handle, known as a “queue de cochon” (pig’s tail), is cut in a single piece with the bowl. Made in Dijon between 1819 and 1838, this wine taster is of the same form as those created a century earlier, attesting to the efficacy of the design. Daughter of one of the founders of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Catherine D. Wentworth (1865–1948) was an art student and painter who lived in France for thirty years. She became one of the most important American collectors of eighteenth-century French silver and on her death in 1948 bequeathed part of her significant collection of silver, gold boxes, French furniture and textiles to the Metropolitan Museum. The collection is particularly strong in domestic silver, much of it provincial, including a group of wine tasters.

Artist

B.N. Gravillon

Date

1819–38

Medium

Silver

Culture

French, Mâcon (Dijon Mint)

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Bequest of Catherine D. Wentworth, 1948