1654, POSSIBLY FRANCONIA, THE COVER WITH LATER SILVER MOUNT, INDISTINCTLY STAMPED

This humpen depicts the Treaty of Westphalia, which in 1648 bought an end to the Thirty Years' War. God is shown giving his blessing to the three rulers standing in alliance on a clover leaf. The composition is based on an engraving published by Matthäus Rembold in Ulm shortly after the conclusion of war. The prayer for peace refers to the devastation and destruction of the Thirty Years' War and begins 'Thy Peace, Thy Peace, Thy Divine Peace, take from us never again...' Robert J. Charleston discusses a similar humpen dated 1650 in the Corning Museum of Glass, New York, see Masterpieces of Glass, New York, 1980, pp. 116-117, no. 50, where he discusses the attribution of glass of this type to a Franconian workshop. A number of glasshouses existed in the Fichtelgebirge range in Franconia, which also became a centre for enamel workshops; parallels have been drawn between the bright enamel colours seen on Kreussen stoneware of this period and glass of this type. Charleston notes that the earliest recorded date for a humpen of this type is 1649. A small number of humpen decorated with the same subject and dated 1651 are recorded, these include: an example in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, see Otto Wittmann (ed.), Art in Glass, Toledo, 1969, p. 59; another illustrated by Rudolf von Strasser and Walter Spiegel, Dekoriertes Glas, Renaissance bis Biedermeier, Passau, 1989, p. 195, no. 40; another in the Philadelphia Museum (accession no. 1938-23-72) and a fifth in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

The silver mount may perhaps be 17th century but engraved at a later date with a German inscription, translated here: 'Charlotte Rantzau inherited this cup from her beloved Father Wilhelm Diede in Fürstenstein in 1807, now we call to God in 1654. From Madelungen it came to Kiel and was presented to her beloved Son Ernst Rantzau on 28 May 1820'.