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A South German silver-gilt mounted Rubinglas tankard, circa 1690, mounted in Nuremberg by Wolfgang Roßler image 1
A South German silver-gilt mounted Rubinglas tankard, circa 1690, mounted in Nuremberg by Wolfgang Roßler image 2
Lot 30

A South German silver-gilt mounted Rubinglas tankard, circa 1690, mounted in Nuremberg by Wolfgang Roßler

2 May 2013, 10:30 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £15,000 inc. premium

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A South German silver-gilt mounted Rubinglas tankard, circa 1690, mounted in Nuremberg by Wolfgang Roßler

The baluster-shaped form with applied scroll handle, decorated with a Cupid holding a heart and flying above an altar with two hearts in woodland, between two tied berried laurel fronds and inscribed above UN SEUL ME SUFFIT, the applied silver-gilt footring with stiff leaf border, the low domed cover with scroll thumbpiece, 15.6cm high, marks for Wolfgang Roßler, Nuremberg

Footnotes

Provenance:
The Collection of Henry Yates Thompson (1838-1928), London
With Heide Hübner, Würzburg, 1986

This tankard belongs to a distinct group of Rubinglas vessels, all seemingly by the same hand, almost always decorated with conceits, and frequently silver-gilt mounted with Nuremberg marks. A beaker engraved with the identical scene in the Schatzkammer Residenz, Munich, is attributed to Heinrich Schwanhardt by E.Meyer-Heisig, Der Nürnberger Glasschnitt des 17.Jahrhunderts (1963), WT 62 and 63.

The Allegory of Love is taken from an engraving (pl.51, no.10) in a book of emblems, published anonymously under the title Devises et Emblemes Anciennes & Modernes tirées des plus celebres Auteurs, published by Daniel de Feuille in 1691 in Amsterdam, a German edition appearing in 1693 published by Lorentz Kroniger and Gottlieb Göbels Seel as Emblematische Gemüths-Vergnügung. Bey Betrachtung Siebenhunderd und fünffzehen der curieusesten und ergötzlichsten Sinn-Bildern Mit ihren zuständigen Teutsch-Lateinisch-Frantzösisch= und Italianischen Beyschriften. Later it was published in Augsburg and subsequently in many further editions.

For the decorative subject matter compare with almost identical versions in the Ernesto Wolf Collection at the Württembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart bearing Augsburg mounts by Tobias Baur, circa 1695; that at Schloss Arnstadt with Nürnberg mounts, circa 1695; that sold at Sotheby's, 30 June 1980, lot 232 with unmarked mounts. Each is similarly inscribed either in script or in Roman capitals. Although of slightly larger size, a tankard in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg is practically identical to that of the present lot and has Nuremberg mounts by Wolfgang Rößler. A further example of the type is in the Frankfurt Museum für Kunsthandwerk, illustrated Glas (1980), p.220, no.478, attributed to Potsdam, circa 1720.

For a fuller discussion of this group and a listing of the known examples - which does not include the present lot - see Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk, Rubinglas des ausgehenden 17. und des 18. Jahrhunderts (2001), p.103 and pp.208-209.

Additional information

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