German ?, 1400-1500, leather with inscription

(censer case); German, 1400-1500, stamped leather, inscription

Stamped leather censer case with lid, with inscription.

Purchased for £15 from Messrs. L. Harris & co. (The Spanish Art Gallery, Conduit Street, London, previously of Hatton Garden and Old Bond St),
RF 88519/1904 and 8375/1904. Condition 'damaged and strap missing'.
It was compared at acquisition with 567-1872, and was catalogued as German 15th century, without comment on having come from a gallery that presumably dealt primarily in Hispanic art.


Notes by W.A.Thorpe c1959:
676-1904

CASE FOR A CENSER (OR MITRE?) Boiled leather formerly brown now sable; vertical seam and foot-rim seam evident within of the container, and the whole of one seam and two parts of another seam evident within the cap.

Conical shut-over cap bearing 2 obverse and 2 reverse panels, that on the right of the obverse containing a blank shield for arms, and that on the left of the reverse bearing a shield of arms chequy; the other two panels containing foliage. Pair of plain eyes corresponding with eyes on the container. Round the base of the cap, the legend O MATER / DEI MEMENTO ME, in Gothic letter, smooth against a stippled ground.

Bucket-shaped container of circular plain (ichnography) consisting of a wood carcase lined within the embushment by a layer of plain leather, and outside the embushment by a thin wood layer. Below the embushment, a pair of leather layers, the outer decorated with 4 vertical panels of foliage on the obverse, and 4 similar panels on the reverse. Plain base . Interior never lined.

ENGLISH(?) or GERMAN 15th CENTURY

General Remarks

The tooling has some resemblance with that of the William of Wykeham mitre-case, though the latter is inferior, and with bucket container of cuir bouilli at Thomson.

Called German on acquisition in 1904.

No negative.

CASE FOR A CENSER. Container consisting of two pairs of layers of wrought and sewn leather, originally brown, now sable. Cap consisting, above the thrust, of one such pair. No lining.

Bucket-shaped container and roughly conical cap. On the container a pair of eyes, and on the cap a corresponding pair, for a flat thong, long-wanting.

On the container, round the top, a horizontal border of leafy scrolls. Below, between the eyes on either side, four vertical panels of fronded devices. Plain base, slightly concave. All in smooth pattern against a stippled ground. Plain base, slightly concave.

Round the base of the cap, in gothic letter, the words: O MATER/DEI/MEMENTO ME in smooth pattern against a stippled ground. Above, between the eyes on each side, two panels; on one side, the right-hand panel containing a blank heraldic shield, and the left-hand panel containing a fronded device; and on the other side, the left-hand panel containing an heraldic shield completed with incised chequer pattern, and right-hand panel with a similar fronded device.

676-1904