Property from an Old German Private Collection
A German parcel-gilt silver tankard, probably Jochim Gripswold, Lüneburg, circa 1560
Lot Closed
December 5, 03:58 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 EUR
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Read more.Lot Details
Description
Tapering hexagonal form, the base with ovolo ornament, the sides with chased and embossed fruit and flowers either side of the six panels each engraved with an armour-clad figure, the figural handle with mermaid thumb-piece, the lid with bud finial, sold with an old inventory index card with expertise by the art historian and museum curator Dr. Horst Appuhn.
22.5cm, 8½in.
594gr., 19oz
A South German private collection, sold
Kunsthaus Lempertz, Cologne, 11/12 March 1938, lot 45
acquired by the great grandfather of the present owner
thence by descent
The present lot is one of at least five hexagonal tankards with the Lüneburg town mark and maker's mark 'IG' conjoined. The mark had previously been read as a 'P' and recorded as unidentified in the reference books of Rosenberg and Scheffler (Goldschmiede Niedersachsens) . Following research by the Hamburg art dealer Hans-Jörgen Heuser and Gerhard Körner of the Museum Lüneburg in the 1970s, the mark was ascribed to the silversmith Jochim Gripswold (fl.1519-1559). The name Gripswold bears some resemblance to the German word for griffin and had been associated with a maker's mark believed to be a representation of that mythical creature. Current research holds that the creature represented is in fact a lindworm (a serpentine dragon from Central European folklore) and is now attributed to the Worm family of silversmiths working in Lüneburg in the same era.
While Gripswold's last known recorded date is 1561 stylistically this is rather early for the tankard, though certainly not impossible. A possible explanation is that Jochim's son Harmen Gripswold (Scheffler, ibid. p.98), who was working into the 1570s, may have carried on using his father's mark.
Perhaps the tankard most closely resembling the present lot is the example sold at Sotheby's, New York, 19 October 1994, lot 169, and engraved with figures in contemporary dress on its six panels. A third tankard engraved with the arts and sciences was sold at Christie's, Geneva, 17 November 1983, lot 309. The fourth example engraved with personifications of the planets was acquired by the Museum Lüneburg in 1973 and features on a pamphlet accompanying the present lot. The fifth example is listed in Scheffler (no.1838).
The engraved figures on the body of the present lot are:
Nero
Trajan
Caesar Carolus (likely Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor)
Judas Maccabaeus
Octavius
An unidentified figure titled 'Ner der II'