SOLD – 17th Century South Bavarian Glass Goblet c1690

Description

A superb Bavarian Wine Goblet c1690 with a bucket bowl decorated  with a single thread of applied trailing that winds its way around and down the bowl towards a spiked gadrooned base. Sits on a hollow inverted baluster knop stem with three crimped talons that support the bowl. Annular cushions knop above a conical folded foot. There are snapped pontil marks at both the base of the bowl and on the underside of the foot.

No chips. cracks or restoration it is clean and clear.      

The glass measures 6 ½ inches tall with a 3 ¼ inch bowl and 3 7/8 inch foot.

We have been able to locate similar documented glasses. all of which reside in European museums including a later example in the V&A London within the German and Swiss glass section. The trailed decoration is a homage to Venetian glass from the late 16^th to mid-17th century and the manner in which th bowl is supported is reminiscent of many winged glasses. This decorative style fell out of favour in the early18th century.

The glass reminded us of those produced in Fluhli in the Lucerne Canton at the beginning of the 18th century. Glass was manufactured there from 1723 when migrant workers from South Wurttemburg and Allgau migrated there to open a “Hutte” a local glasshouse. Having sent pictures to the national museum in Munich there is a consensus of opinion with the V&A and we have been advised that it dates to c1690 though it may slightly earlier and was almost certainly made in Allgau south of Bavaria. The date ranges given were 1670 to 1700 and a firm and very Germanic 1690 by the museum in Bavaria.

We were advised that there are some trick glasses of this form. the talons supporting the bowl would be hollow and there would be a small apertures in the bowl leading to each support. Wine would then flow albeit quite slowly out of the bowl and into the lap of the user. thus encouraging them to drink more quickly.

We were sent a copy of Rainer Rückerts book on the glass collection at the National museum of Bavaria and on page 68 there is a very similar example without the applied trailing on the bowl. Since we started to research this further similar examples have come to our attention in the following museums Corning. Vienna. Liege. Dresden. Turin. Cambridge and Cologne ( catalogue number 245) . Brussels ( inventory number 197) . This is without doubt a “museum piece”.