Mortar With Inscriptions. Bronze. Spain, 1823.

Mortar with inscriptions. Bronze. Spain, 1823.
Bronze mortar with flared mouth and truncated cone-shaped body that develops without discontinuity and whose diameter decreases towards the base; it has two handles or "pieces" towards the smooth decorative moldings that it presents on the upper part. The piece bears, 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 (opposite the other) "Mazon fecci"; both flanked by a simple molding above and another below. This large mortar is of the type that are usually called "hospital" mortars, since they are generally used for medicines in environments with many patients or in large pharmacies. From a typological point of view, it follows the usual line of these examples of the Spanish school of the 19th century: smooth, with moldings and, as a rule, without those ribs (or their derivatives) that usually appear in the previous ones. Compare, for example, with the large pharmacy mortar of the Municipal Archive-Museum of Calella (with an inscription, ribs and human heads as handles), a large mortar of the Museum of Spanish Pharmacy of the Complutense University of Madrid, etc. -
Dimensions: 37x34.5x25 cm. 38 kg.