A fine Dutch façon de Venise diamond-point engraved calligraphic goblet, signed and dated by Willem van Heemskerk, 1686
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A fine Dutch façon de Venise diamond-point engraved calligraphic goblet, signed and dated by Willem van Heemskerk, 1686
The round funnel bowl decorated in a fine calligraphic script with the inscription Pax optima rerum, the inverted hollow baluster stem set between mereses, the folded conical foot inscribed Die Vreê natracht, GODS Wetten acht, 't Wiss' Vreê-Heil wacht, 20.8cm high, signed on the foot Willem van Heemskerk AEs. 73. Ao.1686.
Sold for £30,000 inc. premium

Footnotes

  • Provenance:
    J.G.Wurfbain, Rheden, sold at Cohen and Katz, Rheden, 17 November 1937, lot 642
    With Ween & Klepman, Amsterdam
    A.J.Guépin Collection, sold at Christie's Amsterdam, 5 July 1989, lot 75

    Exhibited:
    Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft, 'Een Glasie van Vrienschap', 1969, no.64

    Literature:
    Marie-Anne Heukensfeldt Jansen, 'Willem Jacobsz. van Heemskerk, glasgraveur', Oud-Holland Vol.60 (1943), p.30 (no. VI)
    W.C.Braat, 'Collections de verres des Pays-Bas', Bulletin Journées int. Verre 1 (1962), 32
    D.Bolten, Een glasie van vrienschap. De glazen van de collectie Guépin, Museum Het Prinsenhof (1969), 22 (no.64)
    F.Smit, Uniquely Dutch Seventeenth-Century Calligraphy on Glass (1989), p.103, no.P7

    The quotation on the bowl translates as 'Peace is best of all' and on the foot as 'He who pursues peace and heeds God's commands, will be awarded the blessings of peace' from Silius Italicus (AD25-101) Punica II, 592.

    Another goblet with the same phrase (Pax optimum rerum) in calligraphy by van Heemskerk, dated 1677, is in a Dutch collection.

Category: Decorative Arts / Glass

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