61. Tankard with cover
This richly decorated and magnificent covered cup is an outstanding example of sixteenth-century Augsburg goldsmiths’ work. On the basis of the maker’s mark struck on the rim, it can be attributed to the Augsburg goldsmith Georg Hellthaler, who became a master around 1567 and died in 1593.
Above its narrow foot rim, the body of the cup widens as it rises and is adorned with rich ornamentation. In three oval cartouches are city views set within landscapes, with animals in the foreground, including a horse, a stag and a roe deer. Between the cartouches are floral motifs arranged in vases. The handle is decorated with female and male herms, while the thumbpiece is in the form of a putto. The hinged lid, composed of superimposed dome-like forms, is surmounted by a cast rosette, at the centre of which a pearl is set within a mask-shaped mount. The lower part of the lid, like the body of the cup, is decorated with city views and animal figures, here including a dog, a cat and a mouse.
In its form, its handle and thumbpiece decorated with figures, and the city views and houses set in landscape cartouches on its sides, the Esztergom cup represents a type popular in German goldsmiths’ work around 1590–1600. Comparable examples include covered cups by the Augsburg master Abraham I Riederer, dating from around 1576–1586, and by Cornelius van dem Heffel of Frankfurt am Main, dating from around 1590, both of which have appeared at auction in recent years.
Terézia Bardi, 2026