I’m Joanna Norman and I am one of the curators of the Europe 1600–1800 galleries.

This is a statue of ‘Neptune and Triton’ and it was made at the beginning of the 17th century. It was commissioned by a Roman cardinal for his garden at the Villa Montalto in Rome and it was designed to be the crowning glory to a large basin with fountain.

Now of course Neptune as the classical god of the seas and his son Triton, who was a merman, is an absolutely appropriate subject for a fountain because it has that watery theme that would have been even more strongly reinforced when you looked at it across a basin of water.

This is one of the earliest works by Gianlorenzo Bernini. He was associated with quite a lot of fountain sculpture. You think, for example, of the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona. So he made it in just under a year, which is extraordinary in itself. He was only 25 but he was already well known in Rome. He was an artist, he was an architect, he was a sculptor, but he also designed objects such as tables and metalwork and also produced set designs for the theatre.

So he was this extraordinary artistic talent and when he was conceiving of things like ‘Neptune and Triton’ he was thinking very much about creating a theatrical whole. And so what you see is a moment captured in marble. It’s Neptune in the act of moving his body. You can see the muscles that are bunched up with energy. You can see the body of Triton as he blows on his conch. And you can see in the billowing cloak and hair and beard of Neptune this extraordinary sense of movement and energy.

I mean, for me, it’s one of the most exciting examples of sculpture at the beginning of the 17th century because I think it encapsulates so much about what is different. It really heralds a new age in comparison with what has gone before and it’s an age that is – and a style – that is all about drama. It’s all about effect and it’s all about intensity – it’s incredibly exciting.

I’m Tim Stanley and I am the Senior Curator for the Middle Eastern Collections at the V&A.

The first impression that you get from looking at the table top is the incredible virtuosity of the marquetry, I mean it’s really superb. In amongst the decoration there are four vignettes, which we think are related to the Ottoman-Venetian war between 1684 and 1699. The central vignette shows a galley leaving an idealised city, a port. This could be Venice or it could be somewhere on the Peloponnese, which is where this war was fought. On the left you see Ottoman troops fleeing in front of the artillery in front of a castle. On the right you can see a duel between two horsemen, one Venetian, one Ottoman, and in the bottom you see someone who is wearing a turban, and is therefore probably an Ottoman, at the hunt.

The Venetians created this table as part of a set of six, we think in order to record their victories. They had lost wars to the Ottomans during the 17th century and they’d lost a lot of territory, and then in 1687 they’d been able to gain control of the Peloponnese. And the creation of the tables, probably for the Doge’s palace, was one of the commissions to celebrate this great victory.

From the point of view of an Ottomanist the decoration of the table is quite interesting because it misrepresents the Ottomans in a way that had become conventional. And if you look at the detail you will see that any Ottoman who is depicted, basically anyone wearing a turban, none of them have firearms. All of the firearms are held by the Venetians. And so, this is part of a sort of very strong idea among Europeans in Venice and the Habsburg empire, that somehow firearms were something Christian and European and that the Ottomans shouldn’t have them, and so when they were represented they were shown as not having them, even though their firearms technology was pretty advanced.

We can see the table as part of the falsification of history that Europeans have all participated in under the impression that they invented firearms, when in fact, of course, we know now that the Chinese invented them in the 13th century.

My name is Maria Cristina White Da Cruz. I am an art consultant and I specialise in religious art.

We have here a tableau. It’s a sort of three-dimensional wax representation. We have Death, a skeleton, a crowned skeleton and Father Time on the left hand side, a winged elderly man pointing at a clock. The figures in the central part of the composition are in fact three different stages of decay. We have somebody who looks as if he has just died, somebody who, at the feet of Father Time, is also very dead and the flesh has begun to really rot and it’s very dark. And the figure in the forefront of the composition, the skin and the flesh is virtually gone and we’re beginning to see the skeleton and there are rats and worms and all sorts of things eating what’s left of the body.

The figure in the centre looks like a beggar and it’s clearly somebody who is very sick and inevitably he’s going to end up looking like the person at the forefront of the picture plane. He is sort of looking very resigned, that he knows that his fate is written in stone really.

If we look at the whole picture, you think, well, how would this fit into a Christian context? Well it’s not a Christian image, per se, it was obviously made within a Christian culture. I wager it was part probably of a series, you know, it was a meditation on death. In a Christian context there would be a reference to redemption that despite our bodies corrupting and turning to ashes our soul is immortal and is going to be redeemed by God. Whereas here, there is no contemplation of light. This is a one-way ticket. It’s not a return journey.

Catholic Mass in 17th-century Italy was usually celebrated with choral settings of the liturgy. Alessandro Scarlatti was the principal composer at the Naples court from 1684. His sacred music, such as this motet, published in 1702, employed a similar dramatic style to that used in opera, treating the vocal line like a solo instrument. Here, Gérard Lesne sings the opening movement of the motet, accompanied by Il Seminario Musicale.

‘Totus Amore languens’ by Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725)
Performed by Il Seminario Musicale, with Véronique Gens and Gérard Lesne. From the album: ‘Alessandro Scarlatti Motets’, Virgin Veritas, 2002

Duration 2.59

My name is Father James Hanvey. I’m a theologian; I’m a Jesuit.

‘La Virgen Dolorosa’, the Virgin of Sorrows, carries with it a deep emotional charge and a deep devotional charge. And we’ve caught her here in this piece by José de Mora in that moment of perhaps her most profound participation. Here she is at the moment of the death of her son.

There is a wonderful, sad, deep, suffering calmness about the face, but also the way in which the eyes are positioned; the eyes draw us in to her and in to her soul. So there’s this extraordinary paradox, that although she’s not looking directly at us she’s actually inviting us into her space.

Even today, wherever you go in Spain and wherever you go in Spanish churches, you’ll find there is Our Lady of Sorrows. Of course one of the reasons why very powerful realistic images like this are so important for the devotion of the people is because it makes that absolute real connection with life. Because we have to remember that at this time, the devotional life was the way in which many people did participate; they wouldn’t have necessarily entered into the sacraments directly or they might not have been part of the more elite groups, but it’s the devotion that would keep them and draw them in.

And so in a sense, she’s the mother of us all, embracing our suffering and bringing it to her son. So I think because there’s that very deep and real human connection, maternal connection, that keeps that path open and it doesn’t matter even whether we’re practicing Catholics or not, it’s still an attractive invitation.

My name is Liz Miller and I’m a curator of the Europe galleries, and this is a Dutch cushion cover from the 17th century.

It’s a lovely thing. It really makes me think about people making themselves comfortable and at home in their interiors. This cushion cover has got a picture in the middle surrounded by a wreath, and then it’s got these lovely birds and flowers in the background against this very, very dark blue, almost black, which really makes the colours sing, I think.

The picture in the middle, it shows a man, well a king actually because he’s wearing his crown, and he’s holding his sceptre in his right hand which he’s extending to his wife. Esther was a Jewess and was married to the Persian king Ahasuerus, and he said to her that he was so pleased with her she could ask for anything, even up to half of all of his kingdom; and what she asked for was that her Jewish community in the kingdom should not be persecuted, and this came to pass.

So at one level this is a very suitable sort of subject for a piece of home-furnishing and a domestic interior, but it would have given the message to people who visited the house that this was a pious, Bible-reading, good Christian family because they had a story from the Old Testament, from the book of Esther, as part of their home.

The technique of this cushion cover is tapestry-woven, so it’s woven in wool and it’s so well woven that it is possible to pick out different species of flowers; so there are carnations, and there are at the top these distinctive, curled, Turk’s cap lilies, and then down in the corner there are birds that I think are probably storks. This is also about the fertility of the family or the hopes for the family and the married couple; that the marriage would bring forth children.

Hello, I’m Elizabeth Hamilton and I’m a volunteer guide at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and here’s a pipe case for you.

Art and design in 17th-century Europe were shaped by trade, colonisation and religious conflict. The Dutch and French now established colonies in Asia and the Americas as Spain and Portugal had a century earlier. Imported goods, materials and commodities began to influence the way Europeans lived.

Tobacco smoking, for example, became a popular pastime for both men and women of all strata of society in Europe. Clay pipes, used to consume the ‘brown gold’ were produced in a variety of lengths, short for the pocket and very long for leisurely use in the inn or at home. Since they were easily broken, pipe cases were made to protect them.

This Dutch pipe case is carved most decoratively from walnut and is dated 1700 to 1730. You’re welcome to touch it. It would have housed a short-stemmed clay pipe and given protection to the pipe whilst also reflecting the status of its owner. Walnut is a hard wood, which lends itself to intricate carving. Often dark in colour, here it is a rich deep red-gold.

The case is in the form of a pipe and is mounted with the mouthpiece to the right and the bowl on the left. The mouthpiece has been turned on a lathe and has a ventilation hole at the end, but the rest of the stem is elaborately carved with foliate and scroll patterns. Towards the bowl end of the stem, to the left of the central turned knop, is a carved figure. Horizontal, as we look at him, his head is on the left and his feet to the right. He is holding high a scimitar whilst a sinuous serpent stands high to his waist about to be struck. The figure is dressed in a tunic and wears a cap, thought possibly to be Turkish in style. The ground to the carving is carefully stippled, perhaps with a hot pin, to give extra depth and interest to the decoration. The carved patterns are identical on each side of the stem and bowl.

The pipe case bowl has a fine carving of a face on its upper side. The eyes are deep and almond-shaped, the nose is broad and the open mouth is wide and straight. The cheeks are well-defined and the face is framed with carved decoration. The bowl is curved upwards to accommodate the clay pipe, which was inserted into the case through the base of the bowl. This would be opened on the brass hinge, which can be felt at the top.

Amsterdam and Gouda were particular centres for pipe-making and the associated crafts. Whilst ornate, this pipe case lacks silver mounts and other more decorative elements and so we may conclude that a wealthy man, but of the mercantile class, once owned it.

I’m Reino Liefkes – I’m the Senior Curator in Ceramics and Glass.

The thing we’re looking at is a spectacular and outlandish object – it’s really, I think, one of the most extraordinary things ever made in ceramic. It’s a pyramid-shaped, huge flower vase. It’s as tall as a person, 1 metre 60. It consists of a large base, which rests on four reclining lions, and then on top of that is a stack of individual containers, and each of these containers has a spout in each of the four corners – you stack them and the containers get smaller towards the top, and those could all be filled with water and flowers would be put in each of those spouts. So the whole pyramid would be clad, as it were, with fantastic flowers.

These vases were really designed as an integral part of the interior – interiors were quite dark, dominated by dark wood, at that time, so these objects would bring a fantastic accent of colour into the interior. Also the shape of this is really a pyramid, and that is something you see a lot in topiary at the time, in French formal garden designs, so these pyramids really bring a bit of the garden inside the home.

The whole object is made out of blue-and-white ceramics, which is made in Delft just before 1700, so it’s white tin-glaze, and in contrast is this beautiful dark blue decoration, which is very typical for Chinese porcelain, and actually, all over this wonderful object are scenes of Chinese figures in Chinese pavilions in a garden.

These type of vases are extremely rare – now an extraordinary fact is that you hardly find them at all in the Netherlands, where they were made, but you find quite a lot of them – relatively – here, in stately homes. And the reason for this is that at that time, the King William III was, of course, a Dutchman married to Mary Stuart. She came to Holland, lived there for a while, and really was bit by this craze for Chinese porcelain and Dutch imitations of it. So, when they were back here at Hampton Court, she ordered huge quantities of Dutch Delft, straight from the manufacturers. And it’s thought that they also ordered ceramics like these; they were usually made in pairs, a pair of these pyramids, and they were given to key, most loyal courtiers at that time.