The table is draped with a Turkish carpet, and the jewelry, the furs, the gold ewers and salvers all insinuate a rising global commodities trade — one of those “commodities” being people like the painter himself.

A dragon curls its tail around the base of a golden, long-neck ewer, its body forming a handle of protruding, pointy scales.

Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water.

At medieval banquets, a ewer -- an impressive jug filled with rose water -- and basins for slop water would be taken around so that guests could deal with the sticky finger problem.

There a servant hastened to them with water in a golden ewer which she poured over their fingers into a silver bowl.