Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Tankard, brown stoneware, with a deep lustrous brown salt-glaze, pewter foot rim, below a chain moulding and a large rib moulded with straps and foliage, enamelled in yellow, red, blue, white and green; tall body ornamented with an arch of putti heads, scrolls and chain, similarly enameled containing a sprigged relief of the Virgin and Child below scrolls, and a similar arch contained an enthroned pope, in red and white vestments, flanking a large oval reserve within an incised yellow-banded frame, painted in polychrome enamels with Christ on a cross bearing the INRI tablet between the Virgin and St John, skull at foot; large rib above; dated 1639 below the c-scroll handle, ornamented with a yellow lion mask and with blue and white foliate scrolls; stepped domed pewter cover, hinged, and with a collared finial and shell thumbpiece.

The tankard on the right of this image is a good example of the moulded and enamelled brown salt-glazed stoneware made at Creussen in Bavaria. The decoration reflects the tankard’s origins in Catholic southern Germany. Flanking a Crucifixion scene are a Pope on his throne and the Virgin and Child, all popular Counter-Reformation subjects. The tankard is dated 1639 beneath the handle. The tankard was formerly in the great collection of Renaissance works of art formed in Prague by Adalbert von Lanna (1836-1909) and later acquired by the diamond magnate Sir Julius Wernher (1850-1912).