An important copper-mounted double mazer cup
from the collection of Walter von Pannwitz
Designed as two connected cups made of Swiss pine wood in gilt copper mountings with prong settings. The tapering base with repoussé sunray designs, the mounts with pierced quatrefoil motifs. The lower cup with a smooth lip and twist fluting. Mounted with a handle designed as a Gothic spire with a tower and battlements, finely engraved windows and roof tiles. The upper cup with corresponding fluting, the base below with finely pierced and engraved foliate scrolls. The well inset with a round plaque picked out in red and green enamel depicting a central, crowned griffon in a trefoil surround. The underside of the base of the lower cup inscribed with the number 396 in red varnish. Height 21 cm; width 18.3 cm; depth 14.5 cm.
Unmarked, attributed to Southern Germany or Switzerland, c. 1500.
In his foreword to the catalogue of the auction of the Pannwitz Collection at Hugo Helbing in Munich in October 1905, Ernst Bassermann-Jordan writes: A Gothic double-cup made of Swiss pine with a gilded copper mount, enhanced in places with enamel, is noteworthy not only as an extremely rare antique, but also as an object of perfect and unique form. Gothic art, which is architecture, has even shaped the handle as a structure, namely as a castle with battlements, towers and bay windows.
Provenance
Former Pannwitz collection, Munich, auctioned by Hugo Helbing, Munich, 24/25 October 1905, lot 72, ill. plate XV; auctioned by Koller, Zurich, 18/19 June 1971, lot 1794, ill. plate 34; private collection, Hesse.
Literature
For more on this type, see Heinrich Kohlhaußen, Der Doppelkopf, Seine Bedeutung für das deutsche Brauchtum des 13. bis 17. Jahrhunderts, in: Zeitschrift für Kunstwissenschaft, Issue 14, 1960, p. 24 ff., as well as the same author, Der Doppelmaserbecher auf der Veste Coburg und seine Verwandten, in: Jahrbuch der Coburger Landesstiftung, Coburg 1959, p. 109 ff. Various designs illustrated in Kohlhaußen, Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst des Mittelalters und der Dürerzeit 1240 - 1540, Berlin 1968, p. 146 ff. An unmarked “Maserkopf” in the collection of the Swiss National Museum Zurich, in Alain Gruber, Weltliches Silber, Bern 1977, no. 55. An example with Gothic architecture in the Ernest Brummer Collection, auctioned by Koller Zurich, October 1979, lot 129 with catalogue illustration p. 179. See also a "maserpokal" in the Bloch-Baur/Pick Collection, illustrated in the catalogue Die Wiener Silbersammlung Bloch-Baur/Pick, Vienna 2008, p. 26 f.
On the decoration, cf. Barbara Schock-Werner, Burgenmodelle im Kunstgewerbe des 16. Jahrhunderts, in Burgen und Schlösser, vol. 30, no. 1, 1989, p. 40 ff.
Exhibitions
Retrospektive Ausstellung, Munich 1901; Exposition Rétrospective d'Objets d'Art, St. Petersburg 1904.