Collection plate

The three brass collection plates housed at the museum were produced in workshops in Nuremberg or, more generally, Northern Europe, given that this type of mass production enjoyed greater prominence in this German city, although, after 1466, it also spread to other places in Northern and Central Europe. They are pieces that were very commonly found in Portugal at the beginning of the 16th century, since Dom Manuel, in his capacity as the governor of the Order of Christ, ordered them to be imported and offered them to all the churches under his patronage, having also sent basins from these churches to the churches in the Atlantic islands or Africa.
This most interesting example depicts original sin as its central theme: the figures of Adam and Eve stand either side of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, around which is coiled the serpent, which had been placed by God in Paradise. This iconography was amongst the ones most commonly found on this type of plate, suggesting a compositional scheme inspired by the famous Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, which, together with Hartmann Schedel’s xylographs, circulated throughout Europe and played a major role in our production of images at that time, especially at the level of painting and silverware made for non-religious purposes. The concentric circular decorations printed on a mould, using the punching technique, and the plant motifs, also obtained through the use of stamps, which are to be found on this and the other two examples, testify to the manufacture of a series, as is borne out by the great quantity of pieces of this type that are still preserved in Portugal.