Lot Essay
Rock crystal, which is a form of quartz, was known in prehistoric times, and is discussed by both ancient and medieval writers, who believed it was ice that had remained deep frozen for a period of many years. It would be difficult to over-estimate its value in the middle ages and the renaissance prior to the general availability of glass, for which we tend to mistake it in paintings of these periods. Its almost magical significance is only underlined by its invariable association with other precious materials. In Hans R. Hahnloser's magnum opus on European rock crystal, jasper, agate, and amethyst from the 12th to the 15th century, a section of the catalogue, which aims for completeness, is devoted to ewers. Of the 41 examples listed, 36 are made of rock crystal. They range in size from miniature examples measuring 7 to 10cm. in height to the largest of them all, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, a double-handled ewer which is 37cm. high. After that exceptional piece, the present example is probably the second-largest known, and is one of only six examples now without mounts. The majority of these ewers are facetted, and 26, like this piece, are twelve-sided. 26 is also the number of ewers with rings around their necks, and of them 15, as here, have a triple ring. Most have handles made from the same block of material, and of them 23 have a single handle as against only 7 with double handles.
It is exceptionally difficult to establish a coherent chronology for medieval rock crystal ewers for a number of reasons. The principal one is that secure dating can only be arrived at by secondary means - because a piece is recorded in an inventory, chronicle, painting or drawing, or because of the approximate date of its mounts. That latter information, however, only provides the date by which it was in existence, since it is by no means clear that mounting always took place immediately after the pieces were made. In one extreme case (Hahnloser, op. cit., no. 472) a jasper ewer, tentatively dated to the 14th century, now has mounts which were designed by François Boucher, and are datable to 1734-5. More generally, it appears that whereas Venice and to a lesser extent Paris were the major centres of production, the mounting of the pieces was done all over Europe in a variety of totally different ways. In view of the extremely small surviving corpus of ewers, it may be imprudent to make general observations, but Hahnloser is surely right to contend that the evident similarities between some of the extant pieces suggest that they date from approximately the same period and were made in a single workshop.
If there is considerable doubt concerning the provenance and chronology of individual pieces, then we are better informed about their uses. Small, paired ewers were mostly employed to hold water and wine during the celebration of mass, while some of them - and indeed a number of pieces whose original function was secular - were co-opted to serve as reliquaries. The great preponderance, however, were designed to adorn the tables and decorate the sideboards of the mighty. The Duc de Berry, whose wealth and opulence were legendary and whose collections were extremely thoroughly inventoried, owned no fewer than 13 aiguières made of rock crystal, together with two of jasper (and 4 jasper bouteilles) of which 8 had one handle and 2 had two according to inventories dating from 1413-16. Other inventories record a similar profusion, and serve to remind us that the number of lost pieces must far outweigh the survivors. The present example is particularly close in its profile to examples in Florence and Istanbul (Hahnloser, op. cit., nos. 468, 477), and would appear, like them, to date from the 14th century. Its style and cutting suggest an early date, and although Hahnloser dated no ewers before 1300, it is by no means impossible that some were made even earlier. Its most unusual feature is the form of its handle, which was presumably designed with metal mounts in mind, and may have been damaged when the mounts were removed, and subsequently in part recut. The other seeming oddity is the silver and silver-gilt spout in the form of a lion, which probably dates from the 19th century and reflects the revival of interest in Sassanian art at that time, but may also signal the fact that the ewer once had a rock crystal spout for a metal mount, as in the example in the Topkapi (Hahnloser, op. cit., no. 482). Like that piece, the present ewer may well have been produced in Venice and then travelled East. It is worth recalling that even as recently as 1910, in the unsurpassed Islamic Art Exhibition in Munich of that year, the great double-handled ewer from Vienna was catalogued by Ernst Kühnel as being Egyptian of the Fatimid period (10-12th centuries) (Sarre and Martin, op. cit., cat. no. 2086, pl. 162), with the caveat that the stylistic links between it and undoubted Fatimid rock crystal work were not overwhelmingly convincing. In fact, all Fatimid rock crystal is carved with relief decoration. Another ewer in the same exhibition (Sarre and Martin, op. cit., cat. no. 2087) was also catalogued as Egyptian, 10-12th centuries, although its silver-gilt mounts were European and dated from the renaissance. They appear to have been removed, and the unmounted ewer is now in the Rijksmuseum (Hahnloser, op. cit., no. 479). There is no reason to doubt that it is a 14th or 15th century European piece. The same goes for those examples with Turkish or Persian mounts (Hahnloser, op. cit., nos. 477, 481, 483), which reached the Middle East from Europe, even if the shape itself, which is found on islamic metalwork and ceramic jugs (Watson, op. cit., figs. 5 and 5a), travelled in the opposite direction. Lamm's magisterial study of medieval glass of 1930 (op. cit.) still basically subscribed to the view that the pieces were Fatimid, and it was only with von Falke's ground-breaking article of the same year (op. cit.) that the European origins of these rock crystal ewers were finally established.
We are extremely grateful to Dr. Rudolf Distelberger for assistance with the cataloguing of the present lot.
It is exceptionally difficult to establish a coherent chronology for medieval rock crystal ewers for a number of reasons. The principal one is that secure dating can only be arrived at by secondary means - because a piece is recorded in an inventory, chronicle, painting or drawing, or because of the approximate date of its mounts. That latter information, however, only provides the date by which it was in existence, since it is by no means clear that mounting always took place immediately after the pieces were made. In one extreme case (Hahnloser, op. cit., no. 472) a jasper ewer, tentatively dated to the 14th century, now has mounts which were designed by François Boucher, and are datable to 1734-5. More generally, it appears that whereas Venice and to a lesser extent Paris were the major centres of production, the mounting of the pieces was done all over Europe in a variety of totally different ways. In view of the extremely small surviving corpus of ewers, it may be imprudent to make general observations, but Hahnloser is surely right to contend that the evident similarities between some of the extant pieces suggest that they date from approximately the same period and were made in a single workshop.
If there is considerable doubt concerning the provenance and chronology of individual pieces, then we are better informed about their uses. Small, paired ewers were mostly employed to hold water and wine during the celebration of mass, while some of them - and indeed a number of pieces whose original function was secular - were co-opted to serve as reliquaries. The great preponderance, however, were designed to adorn the tables and decorate the sideboards of the mighty. The Duc de Berry, whose wealth and opulence were legendary and whose collections were extremely thoroughly inventoried, owned no fewer than 13 aiguières made of rock crystal, together with two of jasper (and 4 jasper bouteilles) of which 8 had one handle and 2 had two according to inventories dating from 1413-16. Other inventories record a similar profusion, and serve to remind us that the number of lost pieces must far outweigh the survivors. The present example is particularly close in its profile to examples in Florence and Istanbul (Hahnloser, op. cit., nos. 468, 477), and would appear, like them, to date from the 14th century. Its style and cutting suggest an early date, and although Hahnloser dated no ewers before 1300, it is by no means impossible that some were made even earlier. Its most unusual feature is the form of its handle, which was presumably designed with metal mounts in mind, and may have been damaged when the mounts were removed, and subsequently in part recut. The other seeming oddity is the silver and silver-gilt spout in the form of a lion, which probably dates from the 19th century and reflects the revival of interest in Sassanian art at that time, but may also signal the fact that the ewer once had a rock crystal spout for a metal mount, as in the example in the Topkapi (Hahnloser, op. cit., no. 482). Like that piece, the present ewer may well have been produced in Venice and then travelled East. It is worth recalling that even as recently as 1910, in the unsurpassed Islamic Art Exhibition in Munich of that year, the great double-handled ewer from Vienna was catalogued by Ernst Kühnel as being Egyptian of the Fatimid period (10-12th centuries) (Sarre and Martin, op. cit., cat. no. 2086, pl. 162), with the caveat that the stylistic links between it and undoubted Fatimid rock crystal work were not overwhelmingly convincing. In fact, all Fatimid rock crystal is carved with relief decoration. Another ewer in the same exhibition (Sarre and Martin, op. cit., cat. no. 2087) was also catalogued as Egyptian, 10-12th centuries, although its silver-gilt mounts were European and dated from the renaissance. They appear to have been removed, and the unmounted ewer is now in the Rijksmuseum (Hahnloser, op. cit., no. 479). There is no reason to doubt that it is a 14th or 15th century European piece. The same goes for those examples with Turkish or Persian mounts (Hahnloser, op. cit., nos. 477, 481, 483), which reached the Middle East from Europe, even if the shape itself, which is found on islamic metalwork and ceramic jugs (Watson, op. cit., figs. 5 and 5a), travelled in the opposite direction. Lamm's magisterial study of medieval glass of 1930 (op. cit.) still basically subscribed to the view that the pieces were Fatimid, and it was only with von Falke's ground-breaking article of the same year (op. cit.) that the European origins of these rock crystal ewers were finally established.
We are extremely grateful to Dr. Rudolf Distelberger for assistance with the cataloguing of the present lot.