Jelly mould

The cake or jelly mould made of copper is an interesting document of old material culture. The presence of this item in the Wilanów collection is based on cognitive rather artistic benefits – it allows us to reconstruct, at least to a small extent, the functioning of the Wilanów Palace, which used to be a comprehensive estate, from the backyard. In the postwar period, along with the adaptation of the former palace to the function of a museum, many functional objects, such as kitchen utensils, were returned to their former owners, dispersed or destroyed. However, contemporary historical narrations running museums are keenly interested in everything that made up old life not only in its high aspects, but primarily in less formal aspects. The jelly mould and similar items were purchased by the Museum. Their purchase is motivated by the attempt to reconstruct, at least to a small extent, the world as it looked like beyond the living rooms and apartments of the palace – the world of the kitchen, the dresser, the servants. Moreover, as Joanna Paprocka-Gajek notices, the former inventories of the palace mention many similar items, including moulds: copper jelly moulds, small jelly moulds, watermelon-shaped moulds, copper tins for cakes of various sizes. At present, the museum has 42 similar items, which – in the case of plans to arrange an exhibition dedicated to the old kitchen – will make it easy to create a vivid exhibition reconstructing the old character of such interior.

This jelly or cake mould with edges surrounded with a round roll, having a semi-plastic composition with the motif of a twig and a stylised quince at the top, was signed: 51; A.WITT/A VARSOVIE/Z.P. 1910. Objects of this kind were rarely signed, so this form is particularly interesting due to the manufacturer’s mark.