A CONTINENTAL SILVER-GILT AND ENAMEL CHALICE
A CONTINENTAL SILVER-GILT AND ENAMEL CHALICE

PROBABLY GERMAN, APPARENTLY UNMARKED, LATE 15TH/EARLY 16TH CENTURY

Details
A CONTINENTAL SILVER-GILT AND ENAMEL CHALICE
PROBABLY GERMAN, APPARENTLY UNMARKED, LATE 15TH/EARLY 16TH CENTURY
On hexafoil foot, engraved with the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, the Virgin and Child with St. Anne, St. Paul and St. John the Baptist, rising to a stem with lozenge-shaped bosses, each enamelled with a letter to spell the name IHESUS, applied with cast figures of saints, with tapering bowl
9 5/8 in. (24.5 cm.)
gross weight, 31 oz. 15 dwt. (987 gr.)
Provenance
With Daniel Katz, London.

Exhibited
Warsaw, Royal Castle, Opus Sacrum, From the Collection of Barbara Piasecka Johnson, 10 April - 23 September 1990, no. 52.

Brought to you by

Alexandra Cruden
Alexandra Cruden

Lot Essay

As stated in the exhibition catalogue Opus Sacrum, the saints engraved on the foot of the present lot are most likely based on disseminated religious engravings (J. Grabski, ed. Opus Sacrum, Warsaw, 1990, p. 294). For example, the engraved scene of Christ, the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne clearly resembles the engraving illustrated of the same subject. The gestures of the Christ child and the adoring downcast gazes of Saint Anne and the Virgin Mary closely relate to each other. This engraving is by the 15th century German engraver and goldsmith Israhel van Meckenem (German, Meckenem ca. 1440/45–1503 Bocholt). Surviving engravings by van Meckenem are rare, and those that did survive probably did because they were used in workshops of craftsmen and goldmsiths who ‘looked to prints for ideas for figural poses, pictorial compositions and decorative motifs to include in their own works’ (J. Byck, Circles of Influence: A Recently Acquired Print, Online feature, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 11 February 2014).

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