Sale room notice
Please note that this baardmankruik has been recovered from the VOC ship "Princes Maria", the contents of which have been sold through Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, sale 227, 29 April 1974 (ill. p.8).
The "Princes Maria", 1100 tons and ca. 50 m. long, perished in a storm near the Scilly Islands in January 1686. In 1973 the team of Rex Cowan finds the shattered rests of the "Princes Maria" and recovers not only pewter and silver, but a number of "baardmankruiken" as well, all filled with mercury or quicksilver, which was used in the East to purify gold and silver, and to cure syphilis