THE CELLINI SALT CELLAR
KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM, VIENNA
IMAGE NUMBER 1030
The Cellini Salt Cellar is one of the world’s greatest Renaissance artifacts, a part-enamelled gold table sculpture created by the Florentine genius Benvenuto Cellini for Francis I of France, between 1540 and 1543. The salt cellar shows an allegory of the Earth and the interplay of land and sea. A male figure (Neptune, the god of the sea, is reclining beside a ship supported by fish, a vessel for holding the salt), represents the sea, and the female figure, (the Roman goddess, Tellus or Terra), represents the earth. The salt cellar is the only work of gold which can be attributed to Cellini with certainty and is sometimes referred to as the “Mona Lisa of Sculpture”. It was commissioned by François I during the artist’s stay in Paris in 1540-1543 and was subsequently given by Charles IX to Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol as a gift. The salt cellar is the key treasure of the Kunst Museum in Vienna. Valued at 35 milion pounds, it was stolen from the museum in 2003 but subsequently recovered.
TECHNICAL NOTES
The image was taken with a hand-held Phase One 645XF Camera at ISO 1600. Exposure of 1/200th of a second and an aperture of F5.6. Schneider Kreuznach 45 mm lens with leaf shutter. The image was captured on a Phase One IQ3 100 megapixel digital back.