Silver cork screw with a Philosophical Reminder

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oel
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Silver cork screw with a Philosophical Reminder

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Silver Corkscrew with a Philosophical Reminder

Dutch silver corkscrew made by Abraham de Troi, registered in the city of Middelburg province of Zeeland, during 1777 -1790. Abraham de Troi maker's mark; three leaves in a rectangular shaped frame.

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The handle is kidney shaped and decorated with garlands and a double side portrait of philosopher. It could be the Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium or Socrates of Athens. Both Socrates and Zeno are often portraited middle aged and balding.
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Left: Portrait of Socrates, 1st century A.D., Roman. Marble, 13 in. high. Musée du Louvre, Paris, Inv. MR 652. Photo: Eric Gaba, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license (CC BY-SA 2.5). Source: Wikimedia Commons. Right: Wall painting depicting Socrates from a Roman house at Ephesus, Turkey, 1st–5th century A.D. Ephesus Archaeological Museum. Photo: Pvasiliadis. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Socrates (Born c. 470 BC), was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as a founder of Western philosophy and the first moral philosopher of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. Socrates lived a life devoted to philosophy, Greek for “love of wisdom”—in his view, a search to understand truth and justice through dialogue. Physically, he was famously snub-nosed and balding like Silenus, an old satyr who was the tutor of the wine god Bacchus. (Plato, Symposium 215b).(2)
https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/a-non-phil ... -to-plato/
Wine and catharsis of the emotions in Plato's laws. Plato condemns drunkenness and other anti-rational states. Wine used correctly, Plato writes wine can actually help to produce virtue
https://www.jstor.org/stable/639284
Role of Wine in Greek Philosophy with Plato & Socrates
If you think about Greek philosophy generally, or just Plato, Socrates, and other sitting around talking about morality, do you also think about them drinking liberal quantities of wine — even drinking wine to the point of getting drunk? Probably not. The sober, serious philosophy associated with Plato and Socrates doesn't seem to leave much room for getting buzzed on wine, but if you read some of the Greek texts closely you'll notice that wine drinking plays an important role.

http://hellenicperiod.blogspot.com/2010 ... -with.html

Zeno is described as a haggard, dark-skinned person, living a spare, ascetic life despite his wealth. Founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, which he taught in Athens from 300 BC Stoicism (Stoa Poikile). Based on the moral ideas of Cynics. Stoicism laid great emphasis on goodness and peace of mind gained from living a life of Virtue in accordance with Nature. Stoics typically drank wine in moderation, but would not allow themselves to get drunk. Stoics classified excessive love of wine as a disease, although curiously they considered hating it too much to be one as well.

Zeno of Citium

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Also see Neostoicism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neostoicism
The sheath is designed as a symmetrical four sided panel with grooved decoration at the bottom to give the idea of a classical column as pedestal for the handle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoa_Poikile
http://agora.ascsa.net/id/agora/monument/stoa%20poikile
https://donaldrobertson.name/2018/10/03 ... a-poikile/

The style and decoration is typical for the British neo classical George the third period or Louis 16th period. Weight 42 gram length 8.5 cm, corkscrew 26 gram length 8.3 cm, sheath 16 gram length 4.9 cm
The city of Middelburg used to be a harbor and trading city and was regularly visited by British sailors and traders until the 4th Anglo Dutch war around 1780 when Middelburg became a city in decline.

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In the handle we see two vent holes used during the hollow casting of the handle.
Hollow Casting is a method of pouring liquid clay into an empty plaster mold for producing a shell of a particular shape. The method differs according to the medium used. Mostly, cast metal sculptures are designed in a hollow manner to confirm that none of its parts are thicker than the other. A difference which occurs in the thickness would result in the cropping up of tensions in the metal when it shrinks while cooling. Hollow casting is used to make candle sticks and other ornamental objects like lamp bases.


Peter.
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