One of the most iconic images of sporting success, both for the significance of the competition and for the beauty of the piece, is that of a Wimbledon champion raising the great golden plate on the center court of the All England Club. The Czech Marketa Vondrousova and the Tunisian Ons Jabeur decide today which of them will show the world the Venus rose water dish.
The Venus Rosewater Dish that immortalizes the Wimbledon champion is a unique trophy, albeit as a work of art because it is simply a replica. To find the original work, you have to travel from a sanctuary like the All England Club to another icon like the Parisian Louvre Museum.
Born in Nuremberg in 1560, Caspar Enderlein spent his artistic career working with metals. In love with the designs of the last stage of the Renaissance, Enderlein specialized in the handling of tin and pewter, an alloy composed of tin, copper, antimony and lead. Caspar reproduced by electrotype engravings by other artists, such as some by François Briot, a French Huguenot sponsored by the Duke of Württemberg, and who in his time designed a multitude of coins. Pieces by both artists are part of the Louvre collection.
In 1585, Briot made one of his most famous works known as the Temperance Plate. Caspar Enderlein worked on that Briot design. The most significant differences between the Enderlein versions and the Briot prototype lie in the figures, flowers, and ornamentation of the spaces between the plates. The mold on which the Wimbledon trophy was made was sold in 1849 to the company Messrs Elkington and Co Ltd. of Birmingham by the German archaeologist Emil Braun. The mold belonged to an Enderlein plate from the Louvre collection. It is not true, as some media claimed at the time, that Queen Victoria was the one who donated the plate to the Wimbledon rectors.
The Agua de Rosas dishes were part of a liturgy for the best families of the time. After the meals, these dishes were used to fill them with crystal clear water boiled with rose petals so that the diners could wash their hands. With the passage of time, the trays became decorative elements. Over the years, the All England Club has received many calls and letters from people claiming to have dishes such as the Venus Rosewater Dish, some in silver and others in copper and even tin, indicating that the Elkington and Co company did more one’s. In fact, there are dishes that appear on lists of the best auction houses.
The decoration of the Wimbledon women’s trophy is based on mythology. The central figure of the plate is Sofrosina, daughter of Erebo and La Noche, and one of the spirits that escaped when Pandora’s box was opened. Sofrosina, who symbolizes Temperance, appears seated with a chest with a lamp in her right hand and a jug in her left, as well as various objects such as a sickle, a trident and a caduceus around her. That central part of the plate is surrounded by the image of four of the classical gods, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury and the Goddess of Water that symbolize the four elements.
On the circumference of the edge of the plate, Minerva can be distinguished presiding over the seven liberal arts: Astrology, Geometry, Arithmetic, Music, Rhetoric, Dialectic, and Grammar.
The first to lift the trophy was Blanche Blingey in 1886, when Wimbledon decided that the women’s tournament would also be held under the challenge round formula, that is, with the champion of the previous edition qualifying directly for the final.
Maud Watson, champion of the first two editions of the tournament, received a Rose Bowl, a trophy almost like a basket full of flowers. This trophy, which Watson gave to the Edgbaston club years later, is the one that the Birmingham tournament champion still holds up to this day. Despite everything, Maud Watson’s name is engraved along with the rest of the champions on the Venus Rosewater Dish.
It was not until 1949 that the champions received a miniature replica of the trophy, until in 2007 it was decided to deliver a larger replica, about three-quarters of the original size and with the names of the champions engraved. In 1886, the first year in which the Venus Rosewater Dish, which cost 50 guineas, was delivered at Wimbledon, it was established that the champion would take a silver cup to her showcase.
