AURICULAR STYLE

Silver dish representing an early development of the auricular style by Christian van Vianen of also called Knorpelwerk, a 17th-century ornamental style based on parts of the human anatomy. Invented in the early 17th century by a Dutch silversmith, Paulus van Vianen, who was inspired by anatomy lectures he attended in Prague, it was adopted by cabinetmakers and carvers in the Low Countries and Germany. Applied to chair backs, frames, cupboards, and other surfaces, the gruesome, curving motifs consisting of bones, membranes, and cartilage were arranged in arabesques, particularly in forms that suggested the human ear, after which the style is named. The flabby, fleshy forms were sometimes contorted into masks, as shown in the Neues Zieratenbuch (New Ornamentation Book) of the Mannerist designer Friedrich Unteutsch of Frankfurt am Main.