Copy of a Romanesque Chalice, silver, parcel gilt, Perhaps German, 1850-58

Chalice, silver, parcel gilt. Wide shallow bowl engraved with busts of the Apostles under an arcade, in the spandrels, leaf ornament, or foliate scrolls. The knop, a flattened sphere formed of filigree scrolls or pearled wire with applied leaves and fruit between, under arches; above and below the knop two bands with filigree work. Flat circular foot set with four embossed medallions representing the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion, and the Maries at the Sepulchre. The interspaces are engraved with half-figures of angels, thre holding scrolls, among foliate scroll-work, all on an engraved ground.

Lent by the Trustees of the British Museum

The Gothic Revival
In the Victorian period a dramatic and profound change took place in religious life. Centred on a renewed interest in the Middle Ages, it affected the appearance of churches and how services were conducted. The influential architect A.W.N. Pugin promoted the Gothic as the true Christian style. Although Pugin was Catholic, his theory appealed to Anglicans of the Oxford Movement - radicals who hoped to restore pre-Reformation services to the Church of England.

The Cambridge Camden Society, founded in 1839, studied the past to identify the medieval architecture and furnishings that would be appropriate for the revived services. The society became an arbiter of style, offering an Anglicised version of the Gothic. By the 1870s some of the equipment normally found in Catholic worship, such as the ciborium, was appearing in Anglican churches.

It was not universally welcomed. Some observers found the incense, the altar cross and the emphasis on ritual scandalously 'Popish' or 'high church'.

The Gothic Revival in Europe
The Gothic revival in Europe owed more to nationalism than religious zeal. The completion of Cologne's medieval cathedral was an affirmation of German culture. In the Habsburg empire, Czechs and Hungarians similarly expressed national pride through Gothic architecture.

Champions of the Gothic claimed by the 1850s that the style was triumphant in Europe. But classical architecture remained a serious rival, even in church building. Much of the most important Gothic work was in church restoration. In Germany and France, goldsmiths like Franz Xaver Hellner supplied Gothic church furnishings.

This is a copy of a Romanesque chalice dating from about 1230 which is in the Holy Apostles church in Cologne. The design was widely influential from the 1850s when the original was published and cast. The German goldsmith, Franz Xaver Heller is known to have made a chalice to this design in 1875. Copies of historic ecclesiastic silver were made for use in churches although this chalice may have been intended for a collector's cabinet. It was bought for the British Museum by the curator A.W. Franks as a genuine Romanesque chalice and he bequeathed it as such to the Museum in 1897. It was still considered genuine as late as 1928 but it is doubtful that it was made to deceive as it was such a well known model. It can be dated to pre-1858 when the original had a new stem added above the filigree knop which this model and subequent later copies do not have.

In Europe, and even in Britain, the stronghold of the Gothic revival, Romanesque designs were sometimes used for church plate. William Burges and George Gilbert Scott produced designs adapted from a 13th century chalice in Rheims.

LOAN:BRITISH MUSEUM.1037-2004