BRONZE MORTAR WITH INSCRIPTION. SPAIN, 1823.

Mortar with inscriptions. Bronze. Spain, 1823. Mortar made of bronze with a flared mouth and a truncated cone-shaped body that develops without discontinuity and decreases in diameter towards the base; it has two handles or “pieces” towards the smooth decorative mouldings that it has on the upper part. The piece has, almost on the edge, an inscription (SOY DE D GREGORIO OCANA ANO DE 1823) in capital letters and a date in Roman numerals with spaces between them; and the text (the opposite of the other) “Mazon fecci”; both flanked by a simple moulding above and another below. This large mortar is of the type that is usually known as a “hospital” mortar, as it is usually used for medicines in environments with many patients or in important pharmacies. Typologically, it follows the usual line in these examples from the Spanish school during the 19th century: smooth, with mouldings and, as a general rule, without those ribs (or derivatives of them) that usually appeared in the previous ones. Compare, for example, with the large pharmacy mortar in the Municipal Museum-Archive of Calella (with an inscription, ribs and human heads as handles), a large mortar in the Museum of the Spanish Pharmacy of the Complutense University of Madrid, etc.

· Size: 37x34,5x25 cms.