beaker

Object NameBeaker with Applied Decoration

Made FromGlass

Date1275-1325

TechniqueBlown, applied

SizeOverall H: 10.1 cm, Diam (max): 8.2 cm

Accession Number2009.3.49

Curatorial Area(s)

Early Modern

Exhibitions

The Nature of Things: Medieval Art and Ecology, 1100-1550

Medieval Glass for Popes, Princes, and Peasants

Interpretive Notes

Web Text

This beaker is decorated with eight continuous horizontal trails. Four deep blue trails alternate with four almost colorless trails, three of which were pinched to form bands of narrow vertical ridges, while the fourth, at the junction of the wall and the base, has a series of fire-polished “toes.” Vessels of almost colorless glass decorated with deep blue trails were made in several parts of western and southern Europe in the later Middle Ages. Beakers with this type of ornament, however, are rare. Similar objects are in the collections of the Museum für Kunsthandwerk in Frankfurt am Main and the Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf, both in Germany. Fragments of another beaker of this type were found in a late 13thcentury context during archaeological excavations at Breisach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, in 1980. The similar beakers noted above are published in Erwin Baumgartner and Ingeborg Krueger, Phönix aus Sand und Asche: Glas des Mittelalters, Munich: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1988, pp. 182– 183, nos. 149–151.

Place Made

Central Europe

Physical DescriptionAlmost colorless glass with almost colorless and transparent deep blue trails; blown, applied. Beaker: roughly cylindrical. Rim plain, with rounded lip; mouth shaped like funnel, but slightly distorted; wall tapers, then is straight and descends almost vertically; base plain, with slight kick; irregular pontil mark (1.6x1.2 cm). Applied decoration consists of four blue trails alternating with four colorless trails, all of which are horizontal (from top to bottom): (1) at junction of mouth and wall, one continuous narrow blue trail, with small blob at point of attachment; (2) one continuous colorless trail, with blob at point of attachment; trail was flattened, then pinched into 13 vertical protrusions; (3) as (1), but not perfectly horizontal and with ends of trail overlapping and larger blob; (4) as (2), but with larger blob and 15 pinched protrusions; (5) as (1), but with virtually no blob; (6) as (2), but with 14 protrusions; (7) as (1), but with virtually no blob and trail wound twice around about half of circumference; (8) as (2) wound around junction of wall and base, and with 17 rounded protrusions that point slightly downward.
Provenance

Provenance Remark

Provenance information not currently available online. Please check back in the coming weeks.