beaker

This small beaker is decorated with prunts (blobs of glass applied to the wall of the vessel). Four rows of prunts occupy the space between a horizontal trail at the junction of the rim and the wall and a second horizontal trail at the junction of the wall and the base. Each row contains eight prunts, and they are arranged in quincunx (as groups of five, with one at each corner and one in the middle of a square). Although fragments of prunted beakers have been found on archaeological sites in many parts of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and even farther afield, relatively few complete examples exist. The Museum has just one related object (87.3.33), but its shape and the form of the prunts are different from this new example. The Museum’s related object is published in Erwin Baumgartner and Ingeborg Krueger, Phönix aus Sand und Asche: Glas des Mittelalters, Munich: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1988, pp. 200– 201, no. 178; and “Recent Important Acquisitions,” Journal of Glass Studies, v. 30, 1988, p. 103, no. 4. Phönix aus Sand und Asche (pp. 194–217, nos. 166–204) contains a generous selection of prunted beakers, mainly from find-places and collections in Germany.