Silver Gilt and Niello Beer Tankard, Schweinfurt, Antique Print, 1851

This is an original antique chromolithograph, printed in colors, from Le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance, lettered "(XVIe SIÈCLE.), POT A BIERE EN ARGENT DORÉ ET NIELLÉ. (Trésor de l'Eglise St Jean de Schwenfurt)". It shows a single tall covered tankard with a tapering body and a flared foot, printed in warm gold and olive with brown shading to suggest gilded silver. The domed lid is topped by a small standing figure printed in gray silver, and a large S-shaped scrolling handle, ending in a beast's head and a curled volute, carries a small figure as its thumbpiece. Fine engraved arabesques run in vertical panels down the body, and a band below the rim is lettered with a German inscription in script.

The running heads read "LE MOYEN-AGE ET LA RENAISSANCE." and "OBJETS DIVERS." Beneath the image are the credits "Ferdinand Séré del.", "Chromolith. Lemercier à Paris." and "Kellerhoven lith.", and below the caption "F. Séré direxit". The caption translates as: Sixteenth century. Beer tankard in silver gilt and niello. (Treasury of the Church of Saint John at Schweinfurt.) The town name is spelled "Schwenfurt" on the plate; it is Schweinfurt in Franconia.

Le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance was published in Paris in five volumes between 1848 and 1851. Paul Lacroix, who also wrote as the Bibliophile Jacob, edited the text, and Ferdinand Séré directed the illustrations, which is what the line "F. Séré direxit" on the plates records. The work surveys the customs, trades, sciences, arts and literature of Europe from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and its plates reproduce furniture, metalwork, ceramics, manuscripts and other objects from public and private collections of the time. The plates are chromolithographs, printed in color from a series of stones rather than colored by hand. This plate comes from the fourth volume, issued in 1851.

The tall gold form makes an elegant upright picture and sits well beside the other tankard and ewer plates of this section.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.